GK consultant and education expert, Monica Thompson, shares her thoughts on ‘What’s next for EdTech in England?’ in the newest GK Insights piece here : GK Insight – Ed Tech article
To arrange a meeting to discuss the political, policy and regulatory aspects of education, contact Monica on monica@gkstrategy.com
The government has today announced its (very!) long awaited response to the Augar Review on post 18 education finance. The announcement will be eclipsed by the dramatic news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it is of importance for the long-term outlook for post 18 education.
The Augar Review was originally inspired by Theresa May’s desire as PM to offer a reduction in student tuition fees, after this became a major issue in the 2017 General Election.
It is believed that May wanted fees cut to £7,000 or £7,500 – perhaps with higher government grants to protect the more “expensive to deliver” courses. There was also a strong desire to shift financial resources away from “low value” Level 6 HE courses, towards Level 4/5 provision in subject areas of greater relevance to skills shortages and the labour market.
Today’s news indicates how far the government has moved from the initial May/Augar vision. Tuition fees will remain at £9,250 for the rest of this Parliament, and quite possibly beyond. Labour has also, under Keir Starmer, moved away from prioritising lower tuition fees. Instead, policy makers will allow inflation to gradually eat away at the real value of fees, which will over time put greater pressure on university finances.
Not only will students be stuck with £9,250 fees, but future students will be expected to start repaying their loans at a much lower level of real incomes – £25,000, instead of over £27,000 at present. The government and the Treasury have decided that students must pay back a lot more towards their loans, rather than allowing taxpayers to take the strain. As well as repayments starting earlier, payments for many will last much longer – for 40 years (before write-off), rather than the existing 30 years. However, in one piece of good news for students, the interest rate on student loans will be cut, so that it is limited to the RPI measure of inflation.
Overall, the changes to student repayments are regressive – lower earning students will pay a higher proportion of income, while higher earners gain from the lower interest rates. The strongly progressive structure put in place by the Coalition government is being watered down.
Where the conclusions of the review do still follow some of the Augar agenda are around the more generous Lifelong Loan Entitlement for both HE and other technical post 18 courses, at Levels 4/5/6. And the two consultations on minimum entry grades for post 18 study and around student numbers control are very important shifts towards potentially restricting access to university courses to those with higher attainment, and to courses with higher labour market returns. This is another major shift away from Coalition policy, which allowed for sector and student led increases in HE places.
The reviews will be controversial, and could make a major difference to the final policy proposals. Disadvantaged students could be big losers from any attempt to restrict university places to those with higher grades, while those delivering courses that lead to typically lower paying jobs will worry that they could face new restrictions on student places. By establishing reviews into both these issues, the government is accepting that change is highly controversial and needs much further thought.
If you would like to discuss the landscape for education policy in the UK, please email louise@gkstrategy.com
Read GK’s newest insight paper on the Government’s Levelling Up White Paper here: Levelling Up White Paper Insights
To discuss what the White Paper means for your business or investments email jack@gkstrategy.com to fix up some time.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, delivered his Autumn Budget and Spending Review to Parliament on 27 October. Set against a backdrop of labour shortages, a supply crisis, soaring energy bills and the spectre of inflation, the Chancellor struck an upbeat tone as he heralded an ‘economy for a new age of optimism’.
For the education sector, the Chancellor revealed a Budget and Spending Review stuffed with apparent good news – with headline announcements including £4.bn extra schools funding and £1.8bn for catch-up. However, following a closer examination of the detail, is the Budget and Spending Review all quite as good as it seems?
Core Schools Budget
Treasury documents confirm that the spending review allocates an additional £4.7bn for the core schools budget in England. This announcement will provide £2.6bn to increase school places for SEND pupils, funding 300,000 more places alongside £1.4bn to deliver six million tutoring courses for disadvantaged pupils, and train 500,000 teachers over three academic years.
This is above the spending commitments made in 2019, with the Treasury stating that this would be “broadly equivalent to a cash increase of over £1,500 per pupil by 2024-25 compared to 2019-20”.
However, with the Chancellor confirming the end of the public sector pay freeze, Treasury documents reveal that the extra funding will go towards “supporting delivery” of its pledge to raise new teacher starting salaries to £30,000, rather than directly to pupils. The small print of the document also outlines that the £4.7bn funding increase “includes public sector compensation for employer costs of Health and Social Care Levy”.
Schools Catch-up
The Spending Review confirms an additional £1.8bn for education recovery – on top of the £3.1bn already announced. The new commitment includes a £1bn “recovery premium” for the next two academic years, with primary schools benefiting from an additional £145 per eligible pupil, while the amount for secondary schools will “nearly double”.
While this additional funding is no doubt welcome, it remains a meagre figure compared to former education recovery tsar Sir Kevan Collins proposal for a £15bn long-term programme. Indeed, the UK continues to lag behind comparatively, with less than £500 of funding available for each child in the UK, compared with £1,800 in the US and £2,100 in the Netherlands.
Furthermore, when the government released its initial catch-up package in June 2021, included was a commitment to review time spent in school, amid calls to aid recovery by extending the school day. Ministers said that findings would be set out “later in the year to inform the spending review”. So far, no findings have been released, and there was no mention of any such plans in the Chancellor’s speech or Treasury documents.
Departmental funding
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the increases in education spending in England is lower than the increases seen in other departments. While the Department for Education’s budget has swelled by 2.2.% in real terms, the average increase across government is higher at 3.3%, with the Department for Health and Social Care receiving a 4% increase.
A new age of optimism?
To engage with the government’s Autumn Budget and Sending Review effectively, organisations will need to understand the wider direction of education policy. GK Strategy are specialists in education and are experts at supporting organisations who are operating in highly regulated sectors and helping them to navigate complex markets and build relationships with key decision makers.
With the Government outlining its long-term spending plans, there are plenty of opportunities for education providers to benefit.
For more information or if you would like to speak to the GK team, please contact Jack Sansum on jack@gkstrategy.com or Nicole Wyatt on nicole@gkstrategy.com.
GK has published its newest Education insights report today, with commentary from our education focused consultants covering:
To set up a meeting to discuss these areas further, please contact robin@gkstrategy.com
Download your copy here: Issue 5_Education insights 2021
COVID has clearly forced a rethink on the role of technology in education. The longstanding minister for school standards, Nick Gibb, who has until recently shown little enthusiasm for technology, announced in January that the Government is exploring a strategy for the creation of “a more resilient education system based on firm digital and technological foundations”. But what will this mean in practice, and how will this agenda be advanced in a department where the digital agenda is far behind departments like health?
As pupils were ordered to stay at home this January, the question of a crisis in education became a reality. Nobody needs reminding that pupils’ education has now seen almost a year of huge disruption, exacerbated by personal traumas and reduced social interactions. No group of pupils is affected more than disadvantaged students, and many who fall into this category also lack the technological and familial support to transition smoothly to a remote or home learning environment.
A January report by the Sutton Trust found that just 5% of state school teachers say all their students have adequate access to devices for remote learning. Parents on lower incomes are twice as likely as more well-off parents to find homeschooling harder now than in March 2020. Most worryingly, 85% of teachers think the lockdown and associated disruption will increase the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peers. This is corroborated by other research across the education sector, not least from the Education Policy Institute, who has researched extensively the impact of lockdown measures on the attainment gap.
While the picture looks bleak for closing the divide, there is an opportunity for a reset in thinking to ensure that some of these challenges and barriers are eroded in the years ahead. Most starkly, there is a huge opportunity to upgrade the education system to give a greater role to digital and technology infrastructure, and levelling up access to these tools for the most disadvantaged.
To coin a phrase, in every crisis there lies opportunity. At least, that seems to be the thinking of School Standards Minister, Nick Gibb, following his speech at BettFest, a virtual EdTech event on the 20th January. Gibb is a renowned educational conservative, with a proclivity for traditional policies and a broad tech-scepticism. For example, he has favoured a ban on mobile phones in schools. However, the current pandemic and related crises appear to have triggered a rethink for Gibb. During the event, he said that the Government was exploring a strategy for the creation of “a more resilient education system based on firm digital and technological foundations”.
Gibb went on to say that the Government was not looking at the use of technology for the sake of it, but for using it as a means to support the delivery of “a consistently high-quality education system”. The EdTech sector, who may have found the Government snail-paced in its adoption of technology in recent years (particularly since Gavin Williamson replaced the more tech-enthusiastic Damian Hinds), this may just signal a turning point.
While it is still early days for this strategy, the effects of inadequate digital and technology infrastructure are being felt by pupils every day. Therefore, the time is now for the EdTech sector to engage with the Government to help it develop and deliver a strategy that is right not just for pupils now, but for the pupils of the future. ‘Build back better’ has become the slogan of policymakers across the Johnson administration, and the crisis facing the education system offers a prime opportunity to put this into practice with a legacy of technological solutions.
If you are an EdTech provider with an interest in what this strategy could look like, or you would like to establish relationships with stakeholders to amplify your voice in this area, please do get in touch with us at ian@gkstrategy.com or on 020 7340 1150.