Education recovery funding worth ‘little more’ than Eat Out to Help Out scheme, analysis finds

Under the government’s current funding to help pupils recover from disruption to their schooling during the Covid-19 pandemic, £984m has been available for the 2021-22 academic year.

• Blog: The government’s education catch-up plan isn’t good enough – here’s how we fix it

• Feature: How tutors help pupils to progress

However, this is only marginally higher than the £840m cost of the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme to help keep restaurants, cafes and pubs open in August 2020.

In total the government has committed to spend £1.4bn over the next three years on education recovery. This amounts to £50 per pupil per year, according to the analysis, which has been carried out by the Education Policy Institute (EPI).

“It is striking that in one month the government spent almost as much subsidising meals in pubs and restaurants as it is now proposing to spend to fund education recovery over one full year for around nine million children,” said EPI executive chairman and former coalition government minister David Laws.

"The next school year should be a year of education recovery. For this, schools and colleges will need a better funded plan which gives them a realistic chance to catch up on the lost learning."

EPI’s latest financial analysis of education recovery spending comes as a coalition of organisations representing young people and children's professionals launches a call on ministers to rethink their plans around supporting pupils.

More than 140 organisations are involved in the coalition which is backing calls from the EPI that a three-year funding package worth £13.5bn is needed to reverse lost education and support pupils’ wellbeing due to the health crisis.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been urged by the coalition, as well as private sector leaders, to significantly ramp up education recovery spending.

“The pandemic has affected every single child in the country, causing untold disruption to their education, development and welfare,” said Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau.

She added: “Children with disabilities, those suffering from trauma, and the millions living in poverty have been hit the hardest. Yet the money promised to help their recovery falls far short and sends the message to struggling families that they simply aren’t a priority for the government.

“The breadth of organisations calling for government to realise this is too wide-reaching to ignore.’

Jonathan Broadbery, director of policy and communications at the National Day Nurseries Association, said that the pandemic “has had the biggest impact on our youngest children”.

“Many have now lived large parts of their lives under lockdown conditions, missing out on time with wider family or playing and learning with children of their own age,” he added.

Backing the coalition is Amanda MacKenzie, chief executive of private sector networking organisation Business in the Community. She said business leaders believe the “economic recovery and future prosperity of the UK rely on having a diverse, skilled and educated workforce, and that development starts with children”.

Education recovery tsar Kevan Collins resigned earlier this month over the government’s funding for school catch up programmes.

Collins had called for a £15bn scheme to help children catch up. In a statement he said the government’s offer was “half hearted”.