Commenting on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry's start of evidence for its
children and young people module, Daniel Kebede, general
secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"Teachers and school staff showed enormous dedication to support
children through the pandemic despite the obstacles placed in
their path by a government that never committed to following the
best scientific advice. Protecting education should have been
their top priority and should have come before schemes such as
Eat Out to Help Out which increased the incidence of COVID.
"Schools and their staff were unlucky to be led by . He put petty-minded,
tribal politics ahead of providing pragmatic and practical
solutions – the distribution of laptops distribution was a
disgrace, the botched exam grading of 2020 a disaster, and he was
schooled feeding disadvantaged pupils by Marcus Rashford.
"Many children suffered during Covid through lost learning and
damage to their mental health. The government's COVID recovery
plan was ill conceived and hugely underfunded. Schools and
educators are still dealing with the legacy of this.
"We do not know when the next pandemic will hit or who will be
most at risk next time, but we hope the inquiry will make
positive recommendations about what steps our education system
needs to take to try to ensure that both staff and students can
continue to learn safely, with minimum disruption."
