The Government needs to prioritise bridging the attainment gap - The Yorkshire Post says

If levelling up is to be truly realised then it needs to start with equipping the future of this country with the skills that will be required to help build a prosperous Britain. And it must be the whole of Britain and not just London and the South East.

Alarm bells from the recent GCSE results should still be ringing in the ears of ministers. The education attainment gap between London and Yorkshire was wider than the pre-pandemic figure and the region was bottom of the pile when it came to other areas of the country.

Schools are already facing immense pressure in poorer areas, it’s a pressure that is becoming unsustainable, in the words of Fiona Spellman, the CEO of the education charity Shine.

If, as Mr Malthouse says, the Government is impatient to help children catch up following the pandemic, then it needs to start targeting support at schools that most require it.

Few people in this region will have forgotten the Government’s mismanagement during the pandemic that led to schoolchildren left without the requisite equipment to enable them to carry on their education from home.

The idea of building a ‘Voxbridge’, a vocational equivalent of Oxford and Cambridge, in the North is welcome, as is giving parents more choice but time is ticking for children already in the system in this region.