Luke is a Research Fellow attached to the Education, Employment and Evaluation sector. His general research interests include education policy, political economy and poverty and inequality. In the recent past, he has conducted research into the following specific areas: school funding; the impact of the home learning environment on child outcomes; trends in top incomes; trends in child poverty and income inequality; and the politics of tax policy.
Education
MSc (Distinction) Economics, University College London, 2008
BSc (First Class) Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2005
In this briefing note, we assess the key policy announcements made in the DfE’s recent ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper around the funding of post-18 education.
The Social Mobility Commission investigated the drivers of socio-economic differences in post-16 course choices and their likely social mobility consequences.
By the time the pandemic is over, most children across the UK will have missed over half a year of normal, in-person schooling. This observation sets out the economic case for a massive national plan to address this crisis.
In our annual series of reports on education spending, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, we bring together data on education spending per student across the life cycle and provide analysis about the major issues facing different sectors.
Further and higher education providers face severe resource challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At this event, IFS researchers and panellists Philip Augar and Mary Curnock Cook analysed these challenges.
School spending covers pupils in state-funded schools aged 5–16, as well as pupils aged 16–19 in school sixth forms. In 2019–20, total spending on schools in England represented about £51 billion (in 2020–21 prices), accounting for 17% of total public service spending in England.
The COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the country – and indeed many other countries. What sets this crisis apart is the many different ways that it is impacting families: while the virus itself is primarily a public health issue, the unprecedented responses it has necessitated mean that this is also very much an economic and a social crisis.
An important part of the UK policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been to try to help ensure key workers with children have access to sufficient childcare. Children of key workers are allowed to continue attending school and childcare settings, and both schools and early years providers are working to ensure wraparound care outside of school hours. Non-working partners, or those working from home, are also expected to provide childcare for key workers in some families.
What are the main parties’ spending proposals for young people in further education and sixth forms, and for adult education? To what extent will they reverse the cuts we’ve seen to date?
