“We’re following the science.” From the very start of the Covid-19 pandemic, ministers have emphasised the leading role that the science of virus transmission and mortality risks has played in their decisions. 

But the policy responses to the virus have affected many aspects of our physical and mental health, as well as having massive economic and social consequences, too.

So, really, we should also have heard the government say just as loudly that “We’re following the social science” - and that includes education specialists.

Failure to do this means that policy has continued to be dictated by the rate of transmission of the virus rather than transmission of harm elsewhere in society. This has meant the almost unquestioning acceptance of some potentially very harmful policies, such as school closures.

Coronavirus: Listen to the education experts 

We are easing ourselves out of lockdown ever more each day, and yet most children won’t go back to school until September. Children will miss out on six months of schooling, in large part, because there are still no experts in education involved in making decisions. 

But it’s not just expertise in education that’s missing - also experts from across the social sciences.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which advises the government on its response to Covid-19, is stacked with academic expertise in health-related disciplines (disease modelling, infection control, epidemiology, public health and health psychology), but contains no political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers or educationists.

SAGE is there to provide advice on how to respond to the pandemic, and any response will impose costs on some people as well as benefiting others. Flushing out the myriad of trade-offs that this involves, and quantifying them, is the purview of economists. SAGE has no economists. 

This is a serious weakness when confronting a massive shock to our health, economy and society. Health-related experts think that health is more important than any other aspect of human wellbeing, because that is what they are trained to think, but only economists are trained to consider how the myriad, and sometimes competing, wellbeing objectives, such as health, education, income and social interaction, should be weighed against one another.

Health, but not at all costs

Health matters, but not at all costs. Many economists, education experts and other social scientists, too, would conclude that the educational and social-development costs being borne by children far outweigh the benefits that their continued absence from schools brings in terms of reduced risks of Covid-19.

We must learn from past mistakes. One solution is to have a grouping that includes social scientists, and which receives the SAGE advice but then looks at the broader picture. 

The sooner we confront the economic and social issues alongside the health-related ones, by incorporating the science of society alongside the science of virus transmission, the better. The sooner we get children back to school in ways that do not continue to cause them or their teachers any harm - that is, without any social distancing - the better.

And once we get the kids back, we should be doing more to teach them about the important role that social science can play in informing policy decisions. 

A judgement call

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT headteachers’ union, has been quoted saying: “A return to school is not a matter for debate - it is a question of science.”

But even if the epidemiological debate about the virus was settled, which it is not, how we weight the mortality risks of predominantly older people against child development and inequalities in learning is entirely a matter of debate. 

The judgement about whose welfare should be prioritised in policy decisions is exactly that: a judgement. It cannot be settled by the evidence on virus transmission, but it can be informed by evidence from across the social sciences, and by economists whose toolkit is designed to quantify the consequences for human health and wellbeing of different judgements.

It is encouraging that the British Academy, in partnership with others including the LSE, announced last week the SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) campaign, designed to encourage more young people to study these subjects. The campaign aims to highlight how the social sciences are not only an important step towards a successful career, but can also teach students valuable skills, such as verbal reasoning and articulacy, as well as furnishing them with a better understanding of society, culture and people.

Never has the need been greater to have scientists and social scientists working alongside each other. In any future health, economic or social crisis, we should hear ministers say, “We’re following the science and social science.”

Paul Dolan is professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, and author of Happy Ever After and Happiness by Design