The paltry investment in education recovery unveiled by the DfE has been met, quite rightly, with derision. We can only conclude that schools and young people are not the government’s priority, says Paul Whiteman


It is fair to say it has been a pretty difficult week for the government when it comes to education.

After months of talking big and building expectation for education recovery, the announcement of their grand plan was, in the end, universally greeted with cries of “…is that it?” (SecEd, 2021).

After leaked reports that the school day itself could be fundamentally changed, after the prime minister’s statements that “no child will be left behind”, after organisations such as the Education Policy Institute put a figure of around £15bn on the cost of recovery (2021), and after reports that the government’s “catch-up tsar”, Sir Kevan Collins, was indeed requesting that level of investment from the Treasury, the final announcement of £1.4bn to cover a bit more tutoring fell utterly flat. A total damp squib.

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