Insights
by Alexander Shea
Policy Update 05.06.20
As reopenings highlight cleavages within school system, DfE plans national interventions If you were asked to describe the âanatomyâ of the English schools system, it would seem easier to detail how our schools and their students cohorts differ from one another than what they share in common. Even before Covid-19, the OECD had found the … Continued
Read MorePolicy Update 06.03.20
Government adopts âreactiveâ approach to school closures, as new evidence shows children just as susceptible to Covid-19. School closures are one of the most beneficial non-pharmaceutical interventions that governments can take to take to combat pandemics.
Read MorePolicy Update 06.09.19
Last week, BESA reported details of a leaked Department for Education (DfE) document that suggested that schools were set to receive a one-off funding increase of just ÂŁ2.8 billion. On Wednesday morning, as Chancellor Sajid Javid took to his feet in the House of Commons to announce the governmentâs latest spending plans, it soon became clear that this leaked document was spectacularly off the mark.
Read MorePolicy Update 06.11.20
As school transmission rates come under the spotlight, DfE finds itself under renewed pressure There is perhaps no area of life and public policy that more clearly illustrates the double-edged nature of decision-making during the pandemic than education. While businesses face huge difficulties that are only surmountable if the government provides sufficient compensation, the issue … Continued
Read MorePolicy Update 06.12.2019
In 2015, as the OECD prepared to publish the latest results of its triennial international ranking of studentsâ skills, âPISAâ, 81 education academics from across Europe published an open letter imploring the organisation to discontinue the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) programme.
Read MorePolicy Update 07.02.2020
Political lobbying is certainly not de rigueur under this government. If this weekâs main political event saw Boris Johnson deliver a speech on the future of UK-EU trade relations before a selection of ambassadors, dignitaries and press at the Royal Navy Academy in Greenwich,
Read MorePolicy Update 07.08.20
New modelling suggests school reopenings risk large second wave It might have been a summer of recovery, In recent weeks, England had taken tentative steps towards normality, pubs, restaurants and shops reopened. Families forced to endure prolonged separation reunited in one anotherâs homes and gardens. Foreign holidays had begun to resume. Social distancing no longer masked the return of … Continued
Read MorePolicy Update 08.11.2019
In early September, the Education Policy Institute (EPI) reported that, for every ÂŁ1 that schools now spend, only 4p are invested in learning resources. As BESA prepares to launch a reinvigorated âResource our Schoolsâ policy campaign in the coming weeks, weâve been looking through schoolsâ expenditure data over the last fifteen years to see whether investment in learning resources has kept pace with the times.
Read MorePolicy Update 10.07.20
DfE Memorandum suggests that half of ânewâ money promised to schools is recycled funding.    Beware the ides of March is a warning that has passed down through the political generations. if Boris Johnsonâs government entered Downing Street last August armed with revolutionary zeal amid claims that it would level up the British economy, it soon found its political agenda for Whitehall superseded by the epidemiological dictates of Wuhan, and the UK national lockdown that soon followed.   … Continued
Read MorePolicy Update 11.10.2019
In Whitehall, this will go down as the week in which Boris Johnsonâs education policy came under attack from both ends of the political spectrum. Ever since it was announced last month, the governmentâs pledge to provide schools with ÂŁ14.1 billion in additional funding by 2022-23 has been described as an example of smart politics, bad economics.
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