Education: England’s New Front Line

There is an old saying that England wins its wars by losing all battles but the last. There is an echo of this in Covid. So many mistakes, except with the vaccines. Here a world class performance is being achieved every day and, provided supplies are maintained, this will be the means by which Covid is brought under control, allowing the economy to be rebuilt.

Throughout the pandemic the political focus has been on protecting the NHS from being overwhelmed. This obvious priority was to avoid a complete collapse, with patients being refused admission, left untreated and spreading even more virus in the community, with a biblical level of deaths. But there was a political imperative too. The NHS is the jewel in the political crown. It is the nation’s proudest possession. To break it would be a political catastrophe for the Tory party, as it would reveal years of underfunding had left the NHS unfit for its core purpose, which is to be on hand to deliver, no matter what.

Yet there is a second front line, which now looms and which can have as great an influence on the future of the Tory party. Education. The weakest minister in the government is put in charge, presiding over a bewildering programme of U turns and muddles causing the lives of university and college students to be chaotic, at a time when they should be inspirational. Secondary schools and primary schools likewise have been subject to change and confusion, let down by inept leadership from government, leaving teachers and parents to pick up the pieces, while the students themselves  miss out on a year or more upon which the foundations of their future success were supposed to be built.

Even the terminology is confusing and grossly undersells the enormous effort and long hours which the situation demands of teachers and staff. Schools are not ‘closed’.  They are open, but to restricted admission, which can be as high as 40% or more. These students have to be taught in class face to face, while at the same time those at home have to be provided with on line learning. Covid protocols create all manner of extra challenges for schools, colleges and universities and increase the demands on staff. But it is not so much the fact of Covid, as the government’s educational response, which causes near universal anger among everyone involved in education at every level, either providers or receivers.

The political price for that will be long lasting. And it will be heavy.