Daily Mail

POLL FURY: DON’T LET CHILDREN DOWN AGAIN

Voters blast PM for silence on exam fiasco – and demand he gets pupils back in class

- By John Stevens Deputy Political Editor

VOTERS today send a message to Boris Johnson that his Government must not let down children again by failing to reopen schools next month.

A Daily Mail poll reveals the depth of feeling about getting pupils back into class full time.

A huge majority believe it should be the top priority for ministers. Most are even willing to see pubs close, shops shut or even social gatherings banned if that is what is needed for proper schooling to resume.

The survey also lays bare the scale of anger over the exams fiasco. Four in five voters believe A-level and GCSE results were mishandled and more

than half want Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to go. A majority fear he is unfit to lead work to get schools back.

Six in ten say Mr Johnson should have cut short his holiday to deal with the exams chaos that left thousands of students facing days of anguish.

The Daily Mail revealed yesterday that the Prime Minister, who still has not publicly apologised to students and parents, was holidaying at a cottage in a remote corner of Scotland while the exam shambles unfolded.

Conducted in the wake of the Government’s U-turn over the use of an algorithm to adjust A-level and GCSE results, the poll will make difficult reading for Mr Johnson as he prepares to return to his desk at No 10 next week.

The Conservati­ves have slipped six points behind Labour on which party is most trusted on education. They were level-pegging at the start of this year.

An overwhelmi­ng 79 per cent of those polled think ministers handled the exams situation badly, including 72 per cent of Tory voters. A total of 54 per cent think Mr Williamson should have resigned.

Another 68 per cent of voters want Mr Johnson to be more visible as PM.

Monday’s U-turn allowed A-level students to receive teacher-assessed grades, instead of those set by the algorithm. Ministers also cancelled a plan to use the computer model to adjust GCSE grades.

The Prime Minister’s approval rating for his handling of the pandemic has tumbled 12 percentage points to -15 over the past three months. Mr Williamson has an even lower net approval rating of -39.

Just over half of voters think he is unfit to lead efforts to reopen classrooms.

Ministers are now under pressure to deliver on their promise to get all children back into school full time from September, with 68 per cent of voters in favour and 14 per cent against.

Three in four said it should be the Government’s number one priority – if it is safe to do so. Given the choice of whether schools should reopen or pubs remain serving if only one was allowed, 80 per cent said they would choose education. Six in ten said they would prioritise getting children back to class over allowing families from different households to meet indoors or in gardens.

When offered either schools reopening or allowing non-essential shops such as clothes retailers to keep trading, 70 per cent went for the former.

The poll revealed concerns about the possibilit­y of a spike in coronaviru­s infections in the coming months. Eight in ten expect a second wave in the UK this winter, but only 37 per cent are confident in the Government’s ability to handle it.

Sajid Javid, the former Tory chancellor, last night warned that not enough had been done to make sure children kept learning through the coronaviru­s crisis.

In an interview with The Times, he revealed that he lobbied the Prime Minister to ditch the system that saw thousands of students have their A-level marks downgraded. He said: ‘I went to a further education college. If I’d been awarded my A-levels on the basis of an algorithm like that, I wouldn’t have been the first member of my family to go to university.’

Mr Javid, who quit his post in February, welcomed the Government’s U-turn on exam results but added: ‘ It doesn’t address the underlying issue ... that while pupils at the best performing schools had a full timetable of lessons in lockdown, over two million children did almost no home learning at all. We can’t afford to just paper over the cracks.’

JL Partners interviewe­d 2,027 British adults online in the poll conducted on Wednesday and Thursday.

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 ??  ?? Under pressure: Gavin Williamson
Under pressure: Gavin Williamson
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