Commenting on the education aspects of the Government’s Levelling Up white paper for England, Helen Osgood, National Officer for Voice Community, which represents education and early years professionals, said:
“We welcome the funding measures, investment in skills and support for disadvantaged areas. However, the package seems limited in scope and ambition, and recycles previously announced initiatives.
“We are concerned that there is no mention of funding or support for post-COVID education recovery across the country, or to recruit new teachers.
“We don’t want to see a situation where there aren’t enough teachers for effective curriculum delivery, or empty classrooms, devoid of teachers, due to a lack of investment.
“The early years are also in the midst of a recruitment and retention and crisis and suffering chronic underfunding, yet they appear, once again, to be missing from the Government’s agenda, or pushed to the back of the funding queue.
”We look forward to more details on funding in the anticipated schools white paper.”
Further information
Department for Education’s announcement of 1 February 2022
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