Commenting on the Education Policy Institute (EPI) research note
which shows that government funding for education recovery for
pupils over the whole of the next academic year amounts to only
slightly more than the funding that has gone towards the
Chancellor’s “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme, Geoff Barton, General
Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“This research suggests the government thinks that children’s
education is less important than measures to support the
hospitality industry.
“It was willing to spend nearly as much on the Eat Out to Help
Out Scheme over the course of a single month as it is on
education recovery over the course of an entire academic year.
“The only possible conclusion is that the government does not
attach the same importance to education as it does to other
public spending priorities.
“It has failed to provide an education recovery package at the
scale which is needed and deserved by children and young people,
and the inadequate measures it announced last week led to the
resignation of the Education Recovery Commissioner in protest.
“MPs now have an opportunity to support the nation’s children and
young people in an opposition day motion in the House of Commons
by backing a far more ambitious plan than the one which has been
set out by the government. We urge politicians of all parties to
unite and send a message to the government that it must do
better.”
