Osborne: ‘Close the education gap with London’

MPs hear call for North to catch up within four years

THE GOVERNMENT should make sure that as many schoolchildren in the North go to good or outstanding schools as in London within four years, according to former Chancellor George Osborne.

Mr Osborne will today call for measures to address the North’s relatively poor educational attainment as he appears before MPs for the first time since he left Parliament in 2016.

Speaking alongside former Treasury Minister Lord Jim O’Neill in front of the Education Select Committee, he will highlight the gap in the quality of schools between London and the northern regions.

Currently, 94 per cent of London children in secondary schools attend a school rated ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’, compared to 85 per cent in Yorkshire and 74 per cent across the North.

According to Mr Osborne and Lord O’Neill, the founders of the Northern Powerhouse concept, bridging the gap would mean an extra 430,000 northern children would go to highly-rated schools by 2022.

Among the measures set out by the pair, who are chair and vice-chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, would be establishing a ‘Northern Board’ to oversee large multi-academy trusts governing groups of schools. Other proposals include:

Businesses in the Northern Powerhouse sponsoring academies, addressing poor leadership and management in schools and mentoring young people to make them aware of the range of jobs available to them;

Committing to significant reforms to support schools teaching children from disadvantaged homes;

Establishing more ‘opportunity areas’, where education services and business work together to broaden children’s horizons;

Rolling out the plan to ensure every child has the level of social and emotional development, knowledge and skills needed for good progress through school across the North.

Their appearance comes four months after a report by the partnership said improving schools in the North should be “at the top of the in-tray” for new Education Secretary Damian Hinds.

Mr Osborne said: “Education is key to the future of the Northern Powerhouse. At the moment, school performance in the North is not as strong as it is in other parts of the country. It doesn’t have to be that way.

“I’m calling on the Government to commit to this bold objective: let’s make sure as many kids in the North attend good and outstanding schools as they do now in London. Working with teachers, businesses and government at every level, we can do it. Our Northern Powerhouse Partnership has set out the plan to achieve it. Let’s get on with it.”

Lord O’Neill said: “Turning around Northern schools is a major challenge. But it was done in London, which had the worst schools in the country, and can be done in the Northern Powerhouse.”

ASKED AT Prime Minister’s Questions last week to praise two West Yorkshire academies, Theresa May noted, gleefully, that there are now an additional 1.8 million children in attendance at ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools than there were in 2010.

This should not be begrudged. Teachers and students have worked extremely hard across the country to meet the Government’s more rigorous expectations. The issue is a North-South divide in academic attainment which is fundamental to this region’s future.

For, while 94 per cent of secondary-age children in London attend schools now rated ‘good’ or better to use Mrs May’s definition, just 74 per cent of students across the North have this good fortune according to the Northern Powerhouse Partnership headed by George Osborne, the former Chancellor, and Lord Jim O’Neill, a former Treasury Minister. This falls to a perturbing 50 per cent in the most disadvantaged areas, where the need for more investment, and focus, is at its greatest.

And while some will contend that Mr Osborne could – and should – have done more to end this imbalance when he ran the Treasury, he, and Lord O’Neill, will be making a powerful and persuasive case when they give evidence to the Education Select Committee today.

Mr Osborne’s first appearance in Parliament since last year’s election, he knows more than most that education – and skills – are integral to the region’s future economic prospects. If schoolleavers and graduates don’t have the requisite skills, entrepreneurs will not invest here.

He will know that London’s schools are now the envy of the country because they enjoyed unrivalled investment, but his Northern Powerhouse Partnership has – to its credit – come up with a fivepoint plan which attempts to confront this region’s specific requirements.

Unless Ministers have a better solution, they should embrace this blueprint. For if it works and the number of pupils in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools reaches London’s current level by 2022, an additional 430,000 children will enjoy a better education as a result – a right that they should be afforded if the Government is committed to investing in the future.