The government’s ambition to close the learning gap that has occurred as a result of the pandemic hit a stumbling block today. After the Department for Education announced plans for a £1.4bn programme in schools to help children catch up, ministers were criticised for not going further in their proposals. Now the government’s education catch-up chief has resigned.
This evening, Sir Kevan Collins wrote to the Prime Minister to offer his resignation as education recovery commissioner. Collins cited the ‘huge disruption to the lives of England’s children’ that the pandemic has caused, arguing that only a ‘comprehensive and urgent’ response would do. That recovery, he said, relies on ‘significantly greater support than the government has, to date, indicated it intends to provide.’
He concludes in his letter that the offer on the table is lacking:
Ministers were already drawing criticism over the plans and Collins’s departure will only give opposition parties more ammunition
‘I do not believe it is credible that a successful recovery can be achieved with a programme of support of this size.
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