Ex-education tsar Kevan Collins brands Government Covid catch-up plan for pupils ‘feeble’ and says ministers’ own assessment shows impact of the pandemic on schools will cost the economy £100BILLION
- Sir Kevan quit after ministers rejected his £15billion programme for recovery
- Told MPs today that £1.4bn scheme which ministers chose instead was ‘feeble’
- Said: ‘We cannot blight a generation of children by not investing in education’
The Government’s former education tsar lashed out at ‘feeble’ plans to help pupils catch-up on missed lessons today and warned that Covid’s impact on schools will cost the economy £100billion.
Sir Kevan Collins, who quit earlier this month after ministers rejected his £15billion programme for recovery, told MPs a ‘massive national effort’ was now required.
He faced the Education Committee today and blasted the scheme that ministers chose instead, that was only worth an initial £1.4billion, branding it ‘a bit of tutoring in the corner’.
It came as Schools minister Nick Gibb today confirmed the Government is planning to scrap pupil bubbles and replace mandatory isolation with daily testing to reduce disruption to children’s education from September.
Sir Kevan told MPs: ‘We do know that the impact of Covid has been significant on children’s learning and that is ongoing and is sitting there and not recovering.
‘It will go with them and we have international examples over time where, if you don’t recover, it can impact not only your academic attainment, but your lifelong earnings. There is a long-term loss, not only to the individual but to the economy.
‘There is definitely something we think happening … to the mental health and the wellbeing of our children: not enough competitive sport, not enough activity, not enough socialisation and music and drama and art. That has a bearing.
‘And we know that our country has responded in a way compared to some others which, quite frankly, is a bit feeble.’
Sir Kevan quit after demanding ministers approve a £15billion package to help thousands of children whose learning has been interrupted by the pandemic get back on track.
But Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that only an initial £1.4billion would be pumped into the system. Sir Kevan today said the sum was ‘feeble’.
Boris Johnson faced pressure to pump more money into the schools Covid catch-up today as experts said other countries were being ‘much more ambitious’ than the UK.
Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the government’s total package so far was worth around £3.1 billion.
‘A lot of that now is focused on the national tutoring programme, which (Sir) Kevan Collins talked about as being quite an important part of education recovery but it is clearly a lot less than the £10-15billion that Kevan Collins was proposing for a full-scale education recovery, which would incorporate much bigger elements.’
The education researcher said there was ‘value’ in staggering funding for schools and that the prospect of clawing back lost learning in the space of two years was ‘a bit fanciful’.
But he said education recovery commissioner Sir Kevan’s idea of longer school days had been ‘pushed into the long grass’ as the Government had failed to pilot the idea.
Comparing the UK Government’s outlay on school catch-up programmes internationally, he added: ‘The Biden administration in the US has proposed about £122 billion – about £1,600 per pupil, over five times more than we’re spending in the UK.
‘The Netherlands is going even further and has allocated over eight billion euros, which amounts to over £2,500 per pupil, so there are countries around the world going much further and being much more ambitious.’
Sir Kevan quit in fury at the start of June after the Government unveiled a Covid catch-up drive for schools with just a tenth of the funding he wanted.
Sir Kevan demanded ministers approve a £15billion package to help thousands of children whose learning has been interrupted by the pandemic get back on track.
But Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that only an initial £1.4billion would be pumped into the system.
Sir Kevan’s call for the school day to be extended by half an hour was also kicked into the long grass, with moved a ‘next stage’ review due to report only by the end of the year.
Children will be offered 100million hours of tutoring over the next three years to help them bounce back from the pandemic – but plans for a longer school day appear to have stalled.
Teachers will also receive extra training and support worth £400million, bringing government spending to date on education recovery to more than £3billion.
The Government has also announced that schools or colleges will be given funding to let Year 13 students repeat the year if they have been badly affected by the pandemic. However, a longer school day and a huge £15billion funding package were notably absent.
Sir Kevan Collins said it had been a ‘very, very difficult decision’ to resign but that he felt he had been left with no choice.
He said the amount of money the Government was prepared to commit had fallen too far short of what he believed was necessary.
‘It was a very, very difficult decision. It wasn’t what I wanted to do,’ he said.
‘I did consider all the options but the quantum was so different from the amount that I thought we needed to deliver the exam question I was asked that it was impossible for me not to step back at that point.’
Sir Kevan said he was ‘very worried’ about ‘complacency’ and the belief that children’s education would recover naturally.
‘Of course we have to do more. We cannot blight a generation of children by not investing in their education,’ he said.
Mr Gibb said today that ministers hoped that mass testing would reduce disruption to children’s education, including removing the need to self-isolate for 10 days if another pupil in a bubble tests positive with Covid.
But leading a backlash to the new proposals, unions blasted ministers for giving ‘absolutely no consideration’ to the logistical challenge involved, and suggested there would be ‘chaos’ when schools return in September.
Meanwhile, younger teachers who have not yet been fully vaccinated expressed concern about the proposals, which they fear could leave them more vulnerable to infection.
Mr Gibb, who vowed to make a decision before ‘Freedom Day’ on July 19, told Sky News: ‘We are conducting trials of daily contact testing as a possible alternative to self-isolation.
‘What matters also is that we keep the school safe and if you go around our schools, you will see a raft of measures to reduce the infection rates within schools.
‘There’s extra hygiene, there’s staggered breaks, we keep children in bubbles, and there’s extra ventilation in classrooms to minimise the risk of transmission.’
Data showing the number of children being sent home to self-isolate every week, compared with the number of positive cases
It came as the new Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, said bubble arrangements and self-isolation for pupils was ‘very very restrictive’ and should end soon, as she spoke of the ‘real trauma’ lockdown measures were causing for young people.
Tory MP Jason McCartney revealed yesterday that some families had been forced to isolate four times in a matter of months.
But unions poured scorn on the testing plans today, with Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, warning of summer of ‘confusion and delay’.
He said: ‘The Department for Education is once again jumping to half-explained ideas with absolutely no consideration of the logistical challenge facing schools and colleges.
‘This shows every indication of our having to endure yet another summer of confusion and disarray, capped off by last-minute guidance with inadequate time for preparations. This is no Plan A, or Plan B. Currently it scarcely qualifies as a plan at all.
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