The Myth of Tory Success in Education
Blog 18 rebuts the campaign on X by Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State that education is a Tory success story
Tackling Tory Misinformation on Schools
This is an amended version of part of an article written for the latest edition of Forum (the academic journal for progressive education) by James Whiting and Ian Duckett. The full version in Forum is available to download free here
From recent bellicose remarks on X about Labour by Gillian Keegan, it appears the Tories regard education as an area where they can score points in a general election campaign. Bagehot in The Economist recently claimed education in schools to be the government’s only success. How far is this true? We expose the Tories’ record as for the most part a carefully confected myth.
Increasing Funding
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) states in its most recent analysis that the funding 1 boost of £2.3 billion announced in 2022 will only return school spending to 2010 levels – when the Conservatives came into power – by 2024-25.4 Prior to that, the IFS report says school spending per pupil declined by about nine per cent in real terms in the decade up to 2020. Furthermore, the recent budget included no further revenue to support schools to address rising pressures. The subsidy to catch up tutoring will be cut with schools expected to make up the difference from the pupil premium.
Paying Teachers
The government reneged on properly funding the new pay deal. For starting teachers, this deal represents a small cut in real terms since 2010 because the government focused rises on new teachers. For serving teachers, the cut ranges from four to 12 per cent in real terms – those with most experience have suffered the biggest shortfall.
Retaining Teachers
According to an analysis in Schools Week:
‘It is … true that teacher numbers have increased in England since 2010 … This is an increase of 6.6 per cent. But, using the actual number of teachers is misleading. This is because the number of pupils in England has increased by around 12 per cent in the same time period, which actually means there are way fewer teachers per-pupil than in 2010. In 2010, there were roughly 18 pupils to every one teacher. Now there are more than 19.6’
On the issue of retention, the National Education Union (NEU) says: The overwhelming issue for teachers is workload, chosen by 73% of those intending to leave in two years and 72% of those intending to go in five years. When re-weighted as a comparison with last year’s survey, which covered England teachers only, this is an increase from around two-thirds. Worryingly, some 90% of 20-29-year-olds cite workload as a reason behind their planning to leave within five years. A recent study shows that a fifth of new starting teachers leave after a year.
Teacher recruitment
Recruitment is currently 48 per cent below target. Only half of the required number of trainee secondary school teachers in England have been recruited as the academic year gets under way. The figures, obtained by the NEU and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), show ministers are on course to miss their recruitment targets by 48 per cent.
Raising standards in reading
Ex Schools minister Nick Gibb, and others, boasted about 10-year-old pupils in England performing fourth out of 43 education systems in the Progress in International Reading (PIRLS). The top three systems are Singapore, Hong Kong and Russia. The results for England are from 2021. Standards have not significantly increased since 2016: rather, the international median has declined over that period. Ex Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman, in her 2022 blog, complained about the 17,500 year seven pupils who were below their chronological age in reading on entering secondary school. The Tories can claim pupils have improved in synthetic phonics tests as teachers have been more skilled in delivering the programme. The jury is still out as to whether the exclusion of all other teaching methods apart from synthetic phonics is improving reading standards overall. A report by Dominic Wyse and others from or the UCL questions the efficacy of this approach.
Better Ofsted inspection results
The Tories like to claim that under them 88 per cent of schools are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. This is misleading because ‘outstanding’ schools were exempted from inspection between 2012 and 2020, meaning one in five schools have not been reinspected. Now inspections have been brought back for ‘outstanding’ schools, 80 per cent of those recently inspected have been downgraded. If, like the Department for Education (DfE), you accept Ofsted as a reliable judge, this suggests that the quality of education is declining rather than increasing.
Narrowing the attainment gap
‘The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers has shrunk by seven per cent since 2011 at KS4 (key stage four) and 9.3 per cent at KS2,’ Nick Gibb claimed in 2017. This appears no longer to be a claim Keegan wants to promote, for evidence contradicts it. An IFS /Nuffield report from 2022 states there has been no improvement in the gap over the past 20 years. The latest DfE report on 2023 performance data states that at key stage two: ‘The disadvantage gap in 2023 is similar across subjects, ranging from 18 percentage points in reading and science to 20 percentage points in maths’. Moreover: ‘The KS4 disadvantage gap index has widened compared to 2021/22, from 3.84 to 3.95. It is now at its highest level since 2011. Before the pandemic, the gap index had widened, going from 3.66 to 3.70 between 2017 and 2019, before narrowing slightly in 2020 to 3.66 when centre-assessed grades were used.
Improved Behaviour and Attendance
2021-22. There is an overall absence rate of 7.6%, up from around 4–5% pre-pandemic.
22.5% of pupils were persistently absent, around double the pre-pandemic rate
1.7% of all pupils were severely absent compared to fewer than 1% pre-pandemic).
There is a crisis in attendance which the Tories are trying to tackle through higher fines but little or no monitoring of children home schooled due to their libertarian lobby. Suspensions are on the rise mainly due to disruptive behaviour. There was a 26% increase since 2018/19. Permanent exclusions remain stubbornly high with nearly 1 in 1000 pupils being permanently excluded. Black, disadvantaged, SEND pupils are the most likely candidates.
Raising standards in technical and vocational education
The Tories have abjectly failed in their attempt to implement a new ‘rigorous’ technical qualification, T levels, to match A level. The Ofsted report into its introduction is damning. It shows high dropout rates, assessment failures and irrelevant work experience. Yet the government still insists on defunding well-regarded qualifications such as BTEC.
Rolling out a successful apprenticeship programme
A Progressive Britain article, ‘The Tory apprenticeship failures’, states:
‘Public spending on apprenticeships has generally been significantly over-budgeted and mismanaged. In 2019/20, the funding was set to rise to over £2.5 billion. In 2020/21, it was set to hit £4.1 billion. This year, £2 billion of the underspent levy was returned to the Treasury. In 2019/20, only 45% of apprenticeship programmes achieved the required standards. In 2020/21 the figure improved to 58%. Last summer, Skills Minister Alex Burghart announced a set of new packages to improve the achievement target to 67% by 2025, but with no clear strategy on how to improve the starts of apprenticeships or achieve the targets.’
Investing in infrastructure
Investigative journalist Warwick Mansell found that: Between 2011 and 2018, £1.7bn was spent on site acquisition and construction for 221 free schools. On average over this period, that is £959,000 per free school, per year. By comparison, a National Audit Office (NAO) report published in June revealed that, from 2016 to 2023, annual spending across the remainder of England’s 21,600 state-funded schools on ‘major rebuilding and refurbishment’ equated to just £26,070 per school, per year. The Tories have prioritised their ideological project above school safety for all. This is a major cause of the RAAC (reinforced aerated autoclaved concrete) crisis affecting 150 schools. The new budget includes funding for 15 new specials schools to be run by their friends in the multi-academy trusts. Why this approach is needed is not clear. Completion is not expected for years.
Ensuring effective use of public funds
The introduction of regional schools directors to oversee the academies sector has created an additional 500 civil servants at a cost of more than £30 million a year. Warwick Mansell, in a report commissioned by the Campaign for State Education (CASE), also revealed the money wasted on inflated executive officer salaries caused by the growth of multi-academy trusts (MATs) and academies. In 2021-22, the 10 largest local authorities spent £3.7 million on the salaries of employees on more than £130,000; the 50 largest academy trusts spent £27.8 million. Since 2010, the leaders of the 10 largest academy trusts have seen salary increases four times that of experienced classroom teachers. Between 2017 and 2022, top pay at the 20 largest trusts rose 12 per cent whilst teachers saw their salaries rise 7.6 per cent. Examples of this are Daniel Moynihan’s (Harris CEO) salary now nearing half a million pounds.
Myth An improving system with rising standards and judicious use of taxpayers’ money
Reality A fragmented system in crisis, which struggles to recruit and retain staff, fails working class children and wastes public funds.