Bridget Phillipson has pledged to reverse “baked-in” inequalities in educational outcomes to ensure young people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to “get on in life”.
Speaking ahead of A-level results day on Thursday, the education secretary accused the Conservative Party of leaving behind a legacy of regional disparities and an attainment gap between private schools and their state school peers.
She said societal failures have left too many children living in poverty and schools struggling with the pressures faced by families – something she said is a “big driver” of educational disparities between the most and least advantaged students.
Ms Phillipson also urged universities to do more to widen access to higher education, as well as offer “ongoing support” to students once they are on degree courses to ensure they do not drop out.
This comes a month after a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed that the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers is wider than it was a decade ago, despite around £9bn being spent on the problem over the last year.
The attainment gap measures the difference in educational outcomes of pupils from different groups.
The report warned that the Department for Education (DfE) does not have a strategy to tackle the problem or “monitoring to understand how much it spends”.
For key stage 4 pupils – the age children leave secondary school – the attainment gap between children on free school meals and their peers is now wider than it was in 2011/12. While the gap for children leaving primary school has narrowed slightly in the past year, it remains wider than it was a decade ago, according to the NAO.
Ms Phillipson told PA: “I know that this year there are really good opportunities for young people to progress, whether that’s into university or into employment or into an apprenticeship.
“I want to make sure that all young people, whatever their background, have the chance to get on in life and that’s the mission of the Labour government.
“But my concern, as we approach the first of the results days, is that after 14 years the Conservatives have baked in massive inequality into the education system, including regional disparities and differences between outcomes for children at state and private schools, and I’m determined to turn that around.”
Highlighting Labour’s new task force to tackle child poverty – which will bring together experts from within and outside of government to attempt to tackle the issue – the education secretary said: “It’s about the quality of teaching, about making sure schools have got what they need, but it’s also what goes on beyond the school gates and that’s where we’ve also seen big failures over the last 14 years.
“And it will take us time to get that right, but I am determined that we bring down the numbers of children living in poverty.”
The head of England’s exams regulator, which will publish a breakdown of results by school type on Thursday, said he was “concerned” about growing disparities between pupils and their better-off peers.
Sir Ian Bauckham, chief regulator of Ofqual, said: “I think it’s a scandal that we’ve got these gaps in our country, whether they’re regional or whether they’re disadvantage related.
“We absolutely have to prioritise collectively as a system closing them, but my job is to make sure that we have a system of assessment and qualifications that runs fairly across the country, demonstrates what students actually know, understand and can do.
“I very much look forward to the day when results days demonstrate that we are closing or have closed those gaps and that will be proof that a policy has been effective.”
The Conservative Party has been contacted for comment.