Will ministers stand by as britain becomes a nation of truants? | thearticle

Just as the country takes its first tentative steps out of lockdown, a new nightmare is emerging. The crisis facing our schools is even worse than was feared. A report by UCL’s Institute of

Education, carried out in April during the peak of the pandemic, found that about one fifth of Britain’s ten million schoolchildren — about two million — had done no work or less than one

hour a day. A separate study by the National Foundation for Educational Research, carried out in May, surveyed 3,000 school heads and teachers. On average, they were in touch with just 60

per cent of their students. That amounts to four out of ten pupils in effect playing truant. The picture painted here suggests that over the three months of school closure we have reversed

more than a century of compulsory education. Between two and four million pupils — 20 to 40 per cent — have in effect abandoned their schools, or been abandoned by them. Their parents are

either unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to ensure that their children keep up with school work. Many are now at risk of falling hopelessly behind if and when they ever return

to the classroom. What has the Government to say about the spectacle of the most deprived members of the youngest generation losing six months of school? So far, very little. Plans for

summer schools and camps are in train, but if these families are unwilling to support their children working at home, how likely are they to send them to special classes in the holidays?

Indeed, the long summer vacation is a problem for education even in normal times. Teachers insist that it is necessary for them to prepare for the next school year, but those pupils who

struggle anyway do not benefit from a six week break. How much worse will their plight be this September, when most will have been away from school for six months and millions may have lost

the habit of attendance altogether? Last week this column highlighted the need for the Prime Minister to take bold action to address the looming education crisis here . One idea is to

persuade those teachers who are able and willing to keep their schools open during the summer holiday. Katharine Birbalsingh — the outstanding head teacher and contributor to _TheArticle —

was _singled out to lead a new drive to get pupils back to school. Since then she has been in touch. Miss Birbalsingh believes it is unrealistic to expect the children who most need help to

come into school during the vacation. She fears that their parents are just not interested. The same parents have failed to ensure that their children attend online classes and do homework.

If, for whatever reason, they can’t or won’t control their kids in lockdown, how will they do so in the holidays? If a huge proportion of pupils are truanting, as seems to be the case, then

Britain faces a grim future. The ugly scenes in London last weekend, when thousands of “football lads” descended on Whitehall to “protect our statues” offer a glimpse of that future. Andrew

Banks, the man who urinated next to the memorial to PC Keith Palmer, told the court that jailed him for two weeks that he was ashamed of his actions. But his counsel admitted that Banks did

not know anything about the statues he and his friends in the Football Lads Alliance claimed to be defending. It is hard to avoid the inference that they went to Parliament to get drunk and

pick a fight with police, urged on by far-Right agitators. We should not exaggerate the numbers of racists in our midst. A recent survey found that only three per cent of the public still

think that to be British, you must be white. That is a still a large number — some two million — and it is far too many. Yet the biggest problem that such men and boys present is not racism,

but ignorance. Do Banks and other “lads” like him even know who Winston Churchill was, let alone Gandhi and Nelson Mandela? What kind of debate is possible in the absence of basic

knowledge? How can we hope to make tomorrow’s Britain a better place, if children today are going AWOL? The Government has no excuse for inaction on this front. The science is clear that it

is safe to allow children to return to school. Parents must be counselled and if necessary compelled to make this happen. Inspirational teachers and heads are needed on the national stage to

persuade those elements of the public who have lost faith in education to do anything for them or their kids. Older people, with precious knowledge and the ability to communicate it, should

be recruited to support teachers in a national campaign to overcome the education crisis. The enemies of society are ignorance and despair. A generation of children is in danger of

succumbing to both. The British are admired for the quality of their schools and universities, but the educational divisions are worse than any others. It is time for the nation as a whole

to put its shoulder to the wheel. That requires leadership from the top. This Government was elected to “ level up”. Boris Johnson, like other ministers, knows that he owes everything to his

education. As the threat to our physical health gradually recedes, he must turn his attention to the millions of young minds that are starved of the knowledge they need. Will the Prime

Minister and his Cabinet stand by as Britain becomes a nation of truants?