GCSE results bring into focus the erosion of equality of opportunity - Henri Murison
This week, children across Yorkshire received their GCSE results. With the expectation that education or training will continue - whether on an apprenticeship, a vocational course at college or A-Levels - they are the ‘sorting hat’ of the education system, sifting children onto their next stage.
However, the Harry Potter reference is perhaps ill-judged, as those who do not achieve a Level 4 or above in GCSE English or Maths are often required to study for and sit the same exam for the qualification they are just perceived to have ‘failed’ in order to continue to the next stage. A positive way to start a new learning setting after secondary school it is not – same content, academic rather than applied, however well the college or learning provider may do to teach it on the meagre funding they are provided. The outcomes are depressing, four in five of those sitting resits this summer across England failed again to secure a Level 4 or above.
This week, only 63.6 per cent of grades in Yorkshire and the Humber were at Level 4 or above – meaning 36.4 per cent of GCSEs awarded were below that level. In London where 71.6 per cent received a Level 4 or higher: 8 per cent higher than the position here in Yorkshire. Before the pandemic, the difference between the proportion of grades within the respective regions was still 6 per cent, but significantly less than this year.
The real-life implications are stark. More young people in Yorkshire will face compulsory re-sits when they start college in September, making their future progress harder than for others who can move on from these results without that barrier. When Professor George Leckie of the University of Bristol examined results in previous years, he found that for persistently disadvantaged children (those consistently on free school meals), they were a full grade lower on average than their better off peers. As the Education Secretary has highlighted, within the poorest children some groups including but not limited to white, do the worst of all. The regional disparities in results this week are therefore in part a proxy for the differences based on how those on free school meals performed; the breakdown for which will not be available until the autumn.
To return to Hogwarts, it is not the GCSE exams, the qualifications themselves or even the schools which are the ‘sorting hat’. It is where you are born, the income of your parents and the wider social and economic determinants including ethnicity that decide your path. We live in a country where you may have talent but whether that translates into qualifications that open the door to A-Levels, then university, or competitive apprenticeships is not a fair reflection of your potential.
It was the promise of the Blair Government to deliver equality of opportunity. In fact the Labour Party’s Clause IV states its ambition “to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential.” Lord Blunkett, in his 1996 conference speech, said that equality of opportunity alongside change was front and centre of the party’s programme of education. The situation his successor Bridget Phillipson now faces should make us all in Yorkshire feel not only injustice but a motivation to do something about it.
It only adds insult to injury that, when Baroness Longfield, then Children’s Commissioner for England, argued during the pandemic to re-open schools, pub gardens came first. We had ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ courtesy of the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak – before we got children back in classrooms. And when a £15bn catch-up package for pupils was proposed, neither the then Chancellor nor the Prime Minister prioritised funding it. To have racked up a huge debt for future generations, for justifiable reasons, but penny pinch only when it came to the same young people who would ultimately pay back that debt through their taxes, is particularly depressing.
Just as the government last year made clear the state of their economic inheritance, I am afraid the education one is no better. I support the fact that the current government has started to grapple with the reality that the issue is not just overall standards in state education – but that a state education doesn’t currently guarantee enough for those who need it most. The then Chancellor George Osborne introduced the Pupil Premium as part of the coalition government, and in doing so created a financial mechanism to start addressing inequality inside the school gates. But in the last decade its real-terms value has been allowed to decline substantially.
Opportunity Areas, created by Justine Greening and benefiting places including Doncaster, Scarborough and Bradford, were all but abolished rather than scaled up and extended. In Bradford, concerted efforts to address the drivers of educational inequality continue without the direct help of central government.
The Education Secretary now faces the same kind of choices Lord Blunkett did three decades ago. Whether it be in schools or in our communities, limited financial resources must be prioritised to deliver on her party’s most fundamental of commitments to the country: equality of opportunity.
Henri Murison is the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.