Nick Clegg: All children deserve an equal chance to succeed

WE have known for many years that there is a link between how rich or poor a child's family is, and how well they do in school.
Nick Clegg, the former Deputy Prime Minister.Nick Clegg, the former Deputy Prime Minister.
Nick Clegg, the former Deputy Prime Minister.

It’s something that I have spent much of my political career trying to address, which is why the Liberal Democrats in government poured billions of pounds into schools targeted at the poorest children; introduced free school meals for all infants and expanded free childcare to the poorest two-year-olds and all three and four-year-olds.

But the problems that cause children from disadvantaged backgrounds to fall behind their wealthier class-mates are deeper and more complex than just money. There are stark differences between boys and girls, and children of different ethnicities. What region you live in – and whether you live in a city, or the countryside, or a seaside town – appears to make a big difference.

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But what causes these differences, and what can be done to address them, are not as well understood as they should be.

That’s why I am chairing a new commission, on behalf of the Social Market Foundation, looking into inequality in education and asking what are the factors that cause so many kids to not have the same opportunity to succeed as others – and what can we do about it.

And we have a particular problem in Yorkshire. For example, over 70 per cent of pupils in London are achieving five good GCSEs compared to 63 per cent in our region. At age 11, Yorkshire and the Humber and the West Midlands have disproportionately high numbers of low scoring pupils. And when we dug a little deeper, we found that there are local disparities too, such as in Sheffield where schools in some parts of the city struggle relative to other parts.

We know that the quality of teaching is hugely important to how well a child does in school, perhaps even more so than other important factors like class sizes, or funding, or whether a school is an academy or not.

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When we looked into the variations in teacher quality, one of the things that came to light very early on was the problem schools with large numbers of disadvantaged children have in recruiting and retaining experienced teachers.

Research shows pupils make less progress when they have a teacher that does not have a formal teaching qualification; or they have a less experienced teacher; or one without a degree in the relevant subject; or when teacher turnover at their school is high.

And our analysis has found that poor pupils in England in Wales are more likely to experience all four of these factors.

It is a cocktail of disadvantage: poorer pupils are more likely to have unqualified, non-specialist or less experienced teachers, and to have a high turnover of teachers. And the problem is most acute in important subjects like maths and physics.

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By the time the commission has completed its work, which includes speaking to teachers, parents, governors and experts from all across the country. I hope that we will be better placed to start proposing new solutions. But the sort of choices policy-makers will face are already starting to become clear.

Many new teachers, to their credit, choose to teach in schools in poorer areas. Improving their pay and the support they receive could mean they are more likely to stay in those schools as they become more experienced and effective.

There is a case to be made that being able to pay experienced teachers more to work in the most disadvantaged areas could help to end this cycle too.

We still need to do much more work to understand the true nature of the factors that affect inequality in our schools and what can be done to address them. But it is vital that we do.

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The policies we introduced in coalition to improve funding and support for disadvantaged children from the very early years are beginning to have an impact, but we need to go much further.

One of my proudest days as Deputy Prime Minister was late in 2014 when the latest primary school results were published. They showed children from the poorest backgrounds getting their best ever results and the gap between them and their better off classmates narrowing.

But even as the gap between richer and poorer pupils in primary schools begins to close, progress in secondary schools has been far slower, showing that there is still a long way to go yet.

No one is pretending that we can ever create an education system where everyone does equally well – of course people differ naturally in their abilities and interests – but inequality of opportunity, rather than outcome, is an entirely different matter. 

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None of us can accept, surely, that one child should do worse than another simply because they are a boy, or because they belong to a particular ethnic group, or because their family has little money, or because of the postcode they live in?

It is these kinds of inequalities which we must seek to eradicate if we really believe in creating a society in which everyone has the chance to achieve their true potential. It is an enormous challenge, and a very complex one. But if we don’t rise to it, our children will pay the price.

Nick Clegg is the Sheffield Hallam MP and former Deputy Prime Minister.