Tories and disadvantaged pupils(1)

Teaching unions are, of course, right to complain about the lack of "stringent guidelines" for schools, when it has been provided for "employers across the UK" (Teaching union says it may delay return to schools,15/05/20). The government clearly want the return of as many children to school as possible to free up their parents, and its sudden concern about the education of disadvantaged children is too much to swallow. The ten years of underfunding education, and freezing the pay of teachers, leading to recruitment problems, especially in the poorer areas, allied with Gove`s assessment reforms and the cuts leading to the closure of many Sure Start centres, created insurmountable obstacles for disadvantaged children. Where was the concern then?

     Similarly, the government`s refusal to force universities to change their admissions procedures, not even insisting on the highly regulated A-levels being the only academic qualification permitted, has ensured pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds rarely get places in our top universities, crammed as they are with pupils from the private sector, and from state schools in the more affluent areas. Either Gavin Williamson has had a Damascene conversion, or yet another "political decision" is being made, with little scientific backing, and plenty of political whitewash!

Sir Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust rightly says that any cap on university places needs to be "carefully implemented to minimise the impact on disadvantaged students" (No to bailout but yes to full tuition fees, universities told, 04/05/20). As the lockdown and schools` shutdown have amply demonstrated, underprivileged pupils suffer from lack of resources at home, and with pupils entered for GCSE and A-level examinations now having their grades awarded by a combination of teacher assessment, their class rank and past performance of their schools, "disadvantaged students" are again the ones "most likely to miss out" (Ofqual lays out system for grading GCSEs and A-levels, 04/04/20).

    There is some news, however, which does point the way at least to  "A-level playing field" in the future; a visit to Cambridge Assessment`s website reveals that the examinations favoured by most private schools in preference to the highly regulated A-levels, Pre-U examinations, are being withdrawn, in low-entry subjects in 2022, and the rest a year later.  A government that care for disadvantaged students as much as this one professes to do, would insist now that the only academic qualifications required for university entrance were the recently reformed  A-levels!