Malcolm X once said that
“Education is the passport to the future.”
But what if some passports
are better than others,
giving the holder access
to better schools and teachers
and, in turn,
a more prosperous future?
These inequalities have been around
long before Covid-19,
and yet, the pandemic has both exacerbated them
and made them more visible.
While the standard of education
varies greatly globally,
education inequality happens
at the local level in all countries.
For example, only four
out of every 100 children in Africa
is expected to enter a graduate
and postgraduate institution,
compared to 14 out of 100
in South and West Asia
and 36 out of 100
in Latin America.
Even in developed countries,
the quality of schooling can differ greatly,
whether rich or poor.
High national wealth then,
is no guarantee of high equality.
The U.K., Germany and the U.S. are among the
richest countries in the world, but all three rank poorly
on an educational inequality league table
of 41 of the world’s richest countries.
By the middle of secondary school,
educational inequalities are worse
than in other countries with much smaller economies
such as Latvia, Spain and Estonia.
However, research has shown that child development
is linked with income.
Unsurprisingly, the U.S. and the U.K.
have some of the
highest levels of income inequality
among OECD countries.
In the U.K., there has been a significant
lack of social mobility since 1945.
As wealth inequality has remained high,
there hasn’t been much change
in how well British children
are doing at school.
In a 2019 report by the education coalition
Fair Education Alliance,
pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in the U.K.
lag their peers by more than 8 months
in reading, writing and maths by age 11.
Children from persistently disadvantaged backgrounds
are 22 months behind,
by the time they finish their school career. Small progress has been made
in helping some children almost beat the odds
and overcome the barriers that face them
but the systemic underlying factors
of our education system
still remain, which mean we’re not ever
reaching the most persistently disadvantaged.
So, what are the contributing factors
of education inequality among children?
According to Unicef, a child’s educational
progress is linked to their family background.
What kind of jobs the parents have
or whether the child is a first generation immigrant
can affect the likelihood of them
continuing into higher education.
Inequality between genders is also apparent from
a young age and tends to grow as children get older.
Reading abilities among girls
are generally better than boys by the age of nine
and, in turn, that discrepancy is more likely
to continue in education beyond secondary school.
And finally, which school you go to can have
a significant impact on your academic performance.
In many countries, the debate on inequality
in education is seen
through the prism of private schools
versus state schools.
The U.K. is home to some very famous private schools
like Eton College and Harrow School, behind me.
Of the 55 British prime ministers,
nearly half were educated at just these two schools,
along with prominent actors, writers, scientists
and royalty from across the world.
To compare, the entire state school education in England of a young person starting from nursery
costs an average of around $96,000.
The annual school fees at Harrow, however,
cost around $56,000
for just one year of a child’s tuition.
But even that is dwarfed by private schools
in Switzerland
such as Le Rosey which costs
more than $135,000 per year.
Many believe that private education
is at the root of inequality
and reduces the chances for those children
who attend state schools.
The statistics tell us that educational privilege
provides significant advantages and opens many doors.
In the U.K., nearly a third of members of parliament,
two-thirds of the country’s top doctors
and 74% of judges were privately educated.
The exam results also reflect the disparity.
In 2019, 45.7% of students
at private schools in the U.K.
got A* or As in their final year exams
compared to the national average of 25.5%.
But there are some state funded schools
that buck that trend.
This is Mulberry School for Girls
in east London.
It’s located in one of the most
disadvantaged areas in the city,
yet the exam performance of students here
is well above national average.
Vanessa Ogden is the headteacher here,
and for the last 15 years,
has been instrumental in seeing
many of her pupils overturn the odds.
As a headteacher, how do you, in your role,
help to tackle education inequality?
The first really important way is to have students
leave with a really great set of qualifications
and really great destinations
to either university or apprenticeships
and so that’s the driving force,
but of course,
inequality brings with it
many structural difficulties in your life.
But while the pupils at Mulberry School
have outperformed their peers for many years,
the Covid-19 pandemic may have
undone much of that work.
We know from the research that Covid-19
has disproportionately affected
people of Black, Asian and minority ethnic background
and those are the families mainly that we serve
and so not only has there been real difficulty
around finance and resources,
but also real difficulty around health.
The very first thing that reared its head
was period poverty, female students
not being able to get sanitary products.
We hadn’t realized that really in a way
schools are the providers of some of those things.
Stationery as well.
So if you don’t have money or if the shops are shut
and you don’t have stationery in the home.
And we lent out all the devices that we could,
so that they could learn at home.
In terms of the reasons why Covid-19
has exacerbated the disadvantage gap,
one big reason is the digital divide,
but it’s also a resource divide in general.
So some families might not have access
to laptops to access online learning.
They might not have a lot of space.
The little progress we have made over the last ten years
is likely to have been reversed by lockdown.
So what was already a dire situation
has been turned into quite a crisis.
The pandemic also highlighted another aspect
of education inequality: private tuition.
By mid-April, there were nationwide school closures
in more than 190 countries,
affecting more than 1.5 billion learners.
This led to an unprecedented demand
for online teaching.
Some online tutoring platforms saw the number
of daily users increase by 1,125% in two weeks.
In Singapore, there have even been
calls to ban the private tuition industry
in an attempt to close the achievement gap.
The Covid-19 pandemic also impacted students
in the U.K. progressing to university.
Due to exams being canceled during the lockdown,
results were given based on an algorithm,
that critics claimed dragged dow
high-achieving pupils in low-achieving schools,
compounding the inequalities they face.
The Department of Education and the exam boards
initially responded by claiming there was no bias,
whether on the grounds of deprivation,
gender or ethnicity.
However, they eventually reversed their decision, with
grades instead estimated by the students’teachers.
So, what can be done to reduce educational inequalities
both here and around the world?
A former Singaporean education minister
said in 2018 that there should be
a broader definition of merit
to recognize a wider range of skills.
We should double up on meritocracy,
broaden its definition
to embrace various talents and skills.
We should not cap achievement at the top,
but try harder, work harder,
to lift the bottom.
The Fair Education Alliance also believes
there is too much reliance on exams
and that education should be more holistic
to include building aptitude and values.
We want an education system
which develops skills
and social and emotional competencies
alongside academic attainment,
we want teachers and leaders to be rewarded
for serving the most disadvantaged students,
we want to engage parents and communities
from all backgrounds in the education system
and we want to prepare young people
for what comes after school.
Education is a way out of difficult situations.
It’s also a means of moving yourself up the tree
in terms of prosperity,
and not just financial prosperity
but also your kind of spiritual
and cultural prosperity as well.
It’s also the case that a policy that works
in one country or region may not work in another.
Economic inequality, however, is likely to grow
due to the Covid 19 pandemic.
This means that creating better education systems
is increasingly important
so that a child’s starting point in life
doesn’t determine their future.
You have to be an optimist,
otherwise you’d pack up and go home in education,
you know, you have to believe there is hope.
Hi guys.
Thanks for watching our video.
I’d like to know how your schooling
has affected your future.
What are the education systems like
in the country you live in?
Comment below the video to let us know,
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