A Commitment to educational equality? Meera Saravanan, IF’s Royal Holloway student placement, investigates
What is it?
The Children’s Wellbeing Bill, introduced in the King’s Speech 2024, is a cornerstone of the new government’s agenda to break down the barriers to opportunity.
The Bill highlights the need to both improve school standards nationally as well as put children at the centre of the education system. The Bill aims to ensure “greater consistency” is delivered, through the requirement for all schools to teach the national curriculum. This is a goal that promotes both inter- and intra-generational fairness by ensuring that every child, no matter where they are educated, is invested in and has the opportunity to receive high-quality education.
The Bill’s introduction is crucial, especially given the UK’s increasing educational ‘postcode lottery’, where poverty and lack of educational opportunity overlap. Standardising the national curriculum will work towards reducing poverty, attainment and regional disparities, and also ensure that all young people are getting a broad and balanced education.
Addressing the barriers to opportunity
As the Bill makes clear, there is a need to ensure young people have the ability to reach their full potential. For that reason, it addresses the lack of support for those who are vulnerable, the cost of education and the financial barriers these impose. The Bill seeks to create a more well-rounded and supportive system whilst highlighting the need to improve child safeguarding. This is a positive step in the right direction, but much of the Bill’s success relies on its implementation. It therefore follows that to create meaningful, systemic change, long-term government spending commitments must be made.
The importance of effective implementation
While the Bill introduces critical reforms, their success will depend on ensuring local authorities and schools have the necessary financial support to implement these changes. There have been measures made to address this, such as: plans to recruit 6,500 new teachers; reform of teacher training; and greater mental health support provision in schools.
More clarity is needed to identify and ensure that those children in the most disadvantaged areas are prioritised. Without a clear system in place there is the possibility that regional inequalities will persist without adequate support.
The Bill may intend to increase educational opportunity for all, but children in care, who are some of the most vulnerable people in society, are not sufficiently mentioned. Education reform for all is an honourable goal in ensuring that future generations are well educated, however, there does need to be more focus on creating support systems for young people from socio-economic groups that are often left behind.
Lack of mental health provision
Mental health support and provision in schools also appears to be lacking in the Bill. As Children & Young People Now report, “the Bill does not give much detail on how the reforms to the Mental Health Act will affect children and young people.” The oversight is concerning in the context of intergenerational unfairness. A previous Intergenerational Foundation report, Costing Young Minds, explains how delaying mental health support has fiscal consequences for wider society years into the future. The report argues that investing earlier in mental health provision: helps those suffering; reduces future national health service spending; reduces long-term unemployment; and reduces the cost to future taxpayers.
Missing from school
Government data highlighted by the UK Parliament POST department, reveals that 20.7% of pupils were identified as ‘persistently absent’, and it is clear that 1 in 5 young people are struggling in the UK. The Children’s Wellbeing Bill does not adequately address how to get these children back to school to ensure that further barriers are not created for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Voices of Children and Young People
Being able to tackle intergenerational unfairness with young people in tow is essential to the success of this Bill. At present, the Bill indirectly addresses young people, but it does not seem to have had direct youth involvement in its development. Breaking down barriers to opportunity and creating opportunity must be prioritised from the top down.
As a Bill that aims to benefit young people and their future, it is key to ensure that there are aspects that directly link to children and young people. The Bill aims to “keep children safe, happy and rooted in their communities”, by improving safeguarding arrangements. But there is no mention of working with young people, and no reassurance that these new systems implemented will resonate with them.
Neglecting the voices of children and their families can lead not only to outdated reform but can also lead to a lack of recognition, or credence for, nuanced issues faced by under-privileged sections of society.
When discussing intergenerational fairness, especially in regard to young people and their future, excluding their voices in decision-making conversations will only lead to a wider disconnect between policymakers and future generations.
The Future
Involving young people in shaping policy and ensuring that their voices are central to discussions and policy design surrounding their wellbeing is vital.
There have been clear suggestions made in order to create wider educational equality, but as previously mentioned, tackling unfairness in the education system needs a long-term focus. Clear systems, collaboration, inclusiveness and evaluation are necessary in order for truly equitable progress to be made.