JULIE ELLIOTT: Exam delay is not enough, our young people deserve better

Boris Johnson with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.

It is quite clear though that this is not enough. The Covid crisis that forced people to work and learn from home laid bare stark inequalities that our young people face across the country.

Having been in constant contact with schools in Sunderland as the pandemic has gone on, I know that they have done an incredible job in tough circumstances, and so many children have benefited from the tireless work done by our teachers.

However, the access that pupils had to books, to devices and to internet connections had a clear effect on the education they received, and so those who already had the means to learn from home fared so much better in the crisis than those who could not.

Whilst households may be described as digitally connected if they have one device in the home, unless they have enough devices for each student to learn individually, for the hours that they need, then students fall behind their more affluent peers.

This is why those in the most deprived areas of the country, on average, lost out more on their education than those in the most privileged areas. These education inequalities do not just set students back now, but they affect them for the rest of their life, and without a proper commitment by the government to support them, this is only going to get worse.

The existing small gestures of device distribution does not go far enough when it is only extended to those taking exams; those who are not taking exams are suffering from this inequality, and they are will exams in the future themselves too.

Therefore the Government’s 3 week delay to the exams next year only serves as a delay – 3 weeks is not enough time for students to catch up what is lost, and what will be further lost this year from local lockdowns across this country that sends students home when one of their peers shows symptoms.

What we need from this government is an approach that supports teachers to do their jobs, and students to learn, not a short delay to exams that will not solve the widening educational inequalities across this country. Our young people deserve better.