The disadvantage gap at GCSE has seen “virtually no change” in 20 years and is now likely to increase following the Covid pandemic, a new report has warned.
Sixteen-year-olds who are eligible for free school meals remain far less likely to earn good GCSEs than less disadvantaged peers and make slower progress through secondary school, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.
And children from more disadvantaged backgrounds may have fallen twice as far behind as the average child, in part due to worse experiences with learning from home in lockdown, the report added.
The new research has been carried out for the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities and was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
It says that if the government is to meet its mission to have 90 per cent of pupils attaining the expected level at the end of primary school by 2030, it needs to prioritise the education system and especially the disadvantaged pupils within it.
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As the report says, the cohort set to leave primary school in 2030 is already three years old.
It says that there is “limited scope to address some of the root causes of inequalities” in early years, which means schools will “need to do nearly all of the heavy lifting if the government’s target is to be met”.
The target, which sets the ambition for 90 per cent of pupils to be hitting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths in key stage 2, was first set out in the Levelling Up White Paper in March of this year.
The IFS report also highlights how just over half (57 per cent) of English pupils eligible for free school meals reached a good level of development at the end of Reception in 2019, compared with 74 per cent of their peers, with these inequalities continuing throughout primary school, the report has found.
‘Slower progress’ through secondary school
And it finds that pupils from a disadvantaged background also make slower progress through secondary school.
Of those who do achieve at the expected level at the end of primary school, just 40 per cent of disadvantaged pupils go on to earn good GCSEs in English and maths compared with 60 per cent of the better-off students.
And while GCSE attainment has been increasing over time, 16-year-olds eligible for free school meals are still around 27 percentage points less likely to earn good GCSEs than less disadvantaged peers.
Furthermore, the vast majority (95 per cent) of non-disadvantaged pupils who achieved above the expected level aged 11 went on to earn good GCSEs, but one in six primary school high achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds missed out on the GCSE benchmark.
And IFS found that 10 years after taking GCSEs, over 70 per cent of those who went to private school have graduated from university compared with just under half of those from the richest fifth of families at state schools and fewer than 20 per cent of those from the poorest fifth of families.
Future earnings affected
The report also finds that the educational inequalities translate into large future earnings differences.
The gap early on carries through when it comes to wages, with people who have lower levels of qualifications also more exposed to slow earnings growth over their lives, the IFS said.
It said the annual salary for 45- to 50-year-olds who have qualifications at or below GCSE level is between £15,000 and £20,000 - which is the same for 25- to 30-year-olds with those qualifications.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said that the IFS research shows “we remain a deeply divided class-ridden society with a depressingly close alignment between family income and educational attainment, such that it is in fact a vicious circle which contributes to generational disadvantage”.
Mr Barton said that to “break out of this circle” of generational disadvantage, “we cannot just keep doing more of the same”.
“We need to see investment in early years education, better support for schools which face the greatest challenges, funding for schools and post-16 education which matches the level of need, and a rethink of qualifications and curriculum so that they work well for all learners. The government must also tackle the scourge of child poverty.
“The stark reality is that the disadvantage gap will never close at the current rate of progress.”
Josh Hillman, director of education at the Nuffield Foundation, said the “comprehensive account of educational inequalities” in the UK demonstrated the “lifelong impact that the disadvantage gap can have on people’s life chances”.
“The evidence on how difficult it is for children to catch up if they fall behind in school is particularly worrying given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. If we are to address educational opportunities, it is crucial that any reform of the system considers all phases of education and that it addresses the socioeconomic factors that lead to disadvantage.”
Last month, Tes revealed that, this year, just 1 per cent of schools achieved the government’s national ambition for 2030 of having 90 per cent of pupils at the expected standard in their key stage 2 Sats.
A Department for Education spokesperson said that since 2011, the department had “narrowed the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers at every stage of education up to the pandemic”.
The spokesperson added that “recent figures show that a record proportion of the most disadvantaged students are progressing to higher education”.
“As part of our work to level up opportunities for all we have invested nearly £5 billion to help young people to recover from the impact of the pandemic - with over two million tutoring courses now started by the pupils who need them most - alongside an ambitious target for 90 per cent of children to leave primary school at the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030.
“We are also making £2.7 billion available by 2025 to support business of all sizes to create more apprenticeships, in addition to investing over £260 million in the last year to expand popular adult training schemes, such as Skills Bootcamps and Free Courses for Jobs, which thousands of individuals have taken advantage of.”
