Back to School – and After

Professor Len Shackleton, Editorial and Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, discusses his new research paper, Back to School – and After, with Acting Academic and Research Director Syed Kamall. In his paper, Professor Shackleton looks at some of the immediate issues facing pupils as the government begins to re-open schools, such as the disparities in the quality of education received by children from different socio-economic backgrounds during lockdown and whether teacher-based assessment is the most appropriate way to examine pupils if exams are postponed or cancelled. The paper also addresses longer-term issues in our education system, which have been exposed by the Covid pandemic. In particular, focusing on how children from disadvantaged backgrounds lose out in our current system. He argues that now is the time to change education for the better, learning from the pandemic by: adapting teaching practices,  changing the structure of the school year and giving parents more power over their child's education.