Education and skills

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.

'Right at the top of the agenda for government should be how to make up this educational deficit created by the pandemic and our response to it — especially for the least advantaged children.'

MPs will debate a number of petitions today relating to university tuition fees. These petitions are asking for all or part of tuition fees for the 2019/20 or 2020/21 academic year to be reimbursed. Between them, they have gathered nearly a million signatures.

The share of people staying on in education beyond the age of 18 has grown substantially in the UK since the 1980s. Yet until now, evidence on the effect of these qualifications on subsequent earnings has been limited. This event presented key findings from three pieces of research published in 2020 by the IFS on returns to education.

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.

The last few days have seen free school meals in England rocket to the front of the papers, as many MPs, campaign groups and businesses have lined up behind Marcus Rashford’s proposals to extend free school meal vouchers through the school holidays until Easter next year. While the motion was defeated last week, the Labour party has promised to bring the motion again – and several Conservative MPs have already indicated that it may receive a more sympathetic hearing the second time around.

The COVID-19 school closures forced children and parents to make unprecedented changes to their daily routines. Including the summer holidays, most children will have had a five-and-a-half-month break from physically attending school by the time they returned in September.