Education’s Polycrisis in 7 charts

The education system faces a series of linked crises at the same time. When viewed from a systemic perspective (see Figure 1) it is clear that these crises interact so that the whole is more challenging than each of the parts. To borrow a phrase from Adam Tooze, the education system faces a polycrisis.

1.Students aren’t coming in to school

The collapse in school attendance is at the heart of the crisis facing the education system. It is a bellweather metric, and is correlated with other important outcomes (including attainment and mental health). Attendance was falling prior to covid, but has since fallen off a cliff. There hasve been a minor rebound in 2024 compared to the previous year (which should be warmly welcomed), but levels are still unprecedentedly low.

150000 students from state schools were severely absent (missing over 20% of days) in 2022-2023 and there is significant regional variation, with Bradford, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Knowsley and Bristol seeing among the worst decreases in attendance, while London boroughs have seen less severe decreases in attendance.

One key reason for this dramatic swing is the ‘fundamental collapse’ in parental support for fulltime schooling. Indeed, the crisis is displaying in clarifying detail the central role that parent support for schooling has played in ensuring the system functions effectively. With this in mind we may need to rethink the policy tools currently used to drive up attendance: namely the policy to punish the parents of low attenders.

A crucial component the response set out in ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ is to fine or punish parents of low attending students. This does not appear to be working, with parents reporting antagonism towards schools who are under pressure to implement such systems. The scale of attendance decline points to this issue being largely structural, and therefore punishing parents is unlikely to be addressing the roots of this challenge. Some schools are sending police to the homes of absent students, in turn because of the pressure they are under to increase attendance.

The student attendance crisis may also be linked to high teacher turnover. ‘Continuity of care’, including reduced teacher turnover, is key to belonging, which is itself an important component of improving attendance.

Other causes of the attendance crisis include student mental health issues and the cost of living. Again, these are extremely complex problems to solve. It is clear that an incoming administration need to engage much more deeply with parents, teachers and students themselves to fully understand the dynamics of these problems and introduce agile and iterative policies to address the complexity of the situation.

2.Students walk an educational tightrope

Education Secretaries and Prime Ministers in the past have commonly used the educational metaphor of a ‘ladder’. They want education to act as a ‘ladder’ out of poverty. But in England today, and the UK more generally, students have to walk a careful tightrope through an unforgiving and highly unequal education system. It’s far too easy to fall off and far too difficult to get back on.

Our high-stakes education system traps individuals at certain stages without advancement opportunities. Those who don’t achieve grade 4 in GCSE English and Maths by the end of 12 years of school have been called the ‘forgotten third’ by ASCL. The result of this is seen in the 9 million adults in the UK with low literacy or numeracy, and the 7.6 million people between 16-64 who are qualified to below level 2 levels (GCSE). The NEET figure for 18-24s currently stands at 851000 (or 12% of the population), which is the highest in 8 years. Though England scored above Germany, the USA and France in the 2022 PISA tests, this hides the fact that our levels of education are some of the most polarised in the world. Unlike education systems where there are multiple ‘second chances’ to get into higher education (such as the US Community College System or the Swiss Dual-Track system) the English assessment and progression system has been designed so that it is easy to fail.

The UK’s outsized educational inequality doesn’t begin or end at GCSE. The early years attainment gap has widened from 2012 to 2022, while some head teachers have argued that attendance challenges with the current Year 9 and Year 10 cohorts may be due to that generation facing the double impact of Sure Start centres closing and covid. Key Stage 2 attainment gaps have increased since the pandemic.

The divide in quality of provision between University and non-University routes is also starker in the UK than elsewhere. Further Education budgets (which support vocational qualifications) have been hit harder by funding cuts. Apprenticeships in the UK are low quality by international standards. Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy the number of apprenticeships have fallen, as have the achievement rates (currently standing at 54.6%). The drop in apprenticeships has been especially sharp among SMEs. There has also been a reduction in mobility through different stages of the apprenticeship system. There has been a concerning drop in the number of intermediate level apprenticeships for younger people, with most of the higher level apprenticeships being taken by those over 25. This suggests current young people in the system will have stunted progression since 43% of those who do a level 3 or 5 apprenticeship have done one at a lower level. Additionally, the traineeships scheme, which was previously a route into apprenticeships, was defunded. Therefore, the vocational education and apprenticeship offer is not only lower quality by international standards, but marked with bottlenecks.

In-work training is both lacking and unequal. Employers invest 26% less for each employee compared to 2005, while graduates receive training at three times the rate of non-graduates. The apprenticeship levy has not successfully reversed the decline in employer training investment.

Another way of describing this is that if we view the education system as a whole, a large proportion of students are operating in a ‘low opportunity education system’. In order to move from an educational tightrope to an ‘educational motorway’ where students have multiple chances to succeed even if they fall at one hurdle, a new administration will need to take a systemic viewpoint.

3.A ‘poverty guarantee’

Torsten Bell has described the two child benefit cap, introduced in 2017, as a ‘poverty guarantee’. Currently in the UK 46% of children in families with 3 or more children are in poverty. This likely has a significant burden on students’ ability to learn. There is a large body of evidence suggesting that poverty exposes people to stress hormones, especially cortisol, which can impact areas of the brain, such as the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Additionally, poverty can adversely affect emotion regulation among children.

For the first time in 2022-2023 most suspensions in England were given to children in poverty.. As the ‘Who’s losing learning? Coalition’ point out, this means that children in poverty are 3.7 times more likely to be sent home.

4. The SEND system has buckled

More SEND students than ever don’t get the support they need. We are seeing both a spike in students diagnosed with SEND and a spike in the number of students with an Educational Health and Social Care Plan. Due to several years of delay and inaction from the government, the SEND system has buckled under the weight of this increase.

Deprived areas have especially been hit, with support for SEND highly negatively correlated with local area deprivation while how students with SEN are identified and how their needs are met is highly variable. Needs are going unmet. Some school leaders have described a system in ‘complete crisis’.

The increase in EHCPs is also particularly stark for 16-19 year olds.

The number of tribunals has tripled to 14000/ year and 98% of tribunal appeals on EHCPs are successful, pointing to the concerning possibility that councils are knowingly rejecting valid applications due to lack of funds, while only 51% of plans are issued within the 20 week deadline. This means that up and down the country thousands of students are not getting the support they need. SEN caseload is at an all-time high.

The government’s primary mechanism for addressing these challenges through their ‘Improvement Plan’ is a new set of standards and accountability mechanisms. It took 3 years to launch a review into SEND, and they will be piloting the new standards for a further 3 years. According to reports the process is 9 months behind schedule, partly due to changes in ministerial leadership. Since 2019, when Gavin Williamson launched an SEND review, thousands of students have been through the education system without getting the right support for their needs. The government has been unable to take decisive and swift action and both children and parents are paying the price.

The SEND crisis intersects with falling attendance and the breakdown in the relationship between parents and schools. A key part of addressing the present crisis will be ‘restoring the social contract between schools and parents’, including addressing the humiliating and frustrating experience parents must currently navigate. This failing system puts serious strain on parents. According to a Disability Policy Centre report, 65% of guardians ‘had to fight’ to get their child an EHCP.

5.Youth face a mental health crisis

The unprecedented mental health crisis among young people informs almost every educational choice. It impacts teachers and their approach to school sanctions, assessments and enforcing attendance, and may go some way to explaining why 77 per cent of young people, parents, teachers and employers agree that we need to rethink the purpose of education.

⅕ of young people have a mental health conditon and 270000 are waiting for support. The crisis is especially serious for girls, of whom 30% aged 10-15 experience mental difficulties. This crisis extends to universities, where 1 in 6 undergraduates experience mental health issues. This has contributed to the startling fact that people in 20s more likely to be out of work because of ill health than people in their 40s.

This is interrelated with the attendance crisis, and possibly with the parental drop in support for full-time schooling. The schooling system did not cause the mental health crisis, and has been caught in the cross-hairs of what Jonathan Haidt calls ‘The great rewiring of childhood.’

6.Teachers are Leaving

Teacher retention and recruitment is another challenge which started before covid and has accelerated since. Targets for recruiting teachers into ITT are down to 50% for Secondary Subjects, while teacher retention is falling. Pupil-teacher ratios are on the rise, especially in secondaries outside London. The problem will be targeted at Secondaries, over the next 5 years, as a bulge in population moves its way through secondary schools. There is also a crisis in school leader recruitment. Only 43% of Assistant and Deputy Heads expressed that they aspired to become a Head Teacher.

This is leading to a lower quality of teaching, especially for students in more deprived areas, and secondaries outside London. In one survey 80% of teachers said that one of their subject GCSE classes were facing major disruption, including staff changes mid-year. The teacher shortage is impacting disadvantaged students the most, with GCSE classes in deprived schools reporting more disruptions to their teaching than those in fee-paying schools.

Additionally there are significant challenges facing the recruitment of nursery staff, teaching assistants, school support staff and tutors.

The crisis in the teaching profession is being caused by increased workload, especially owing to more severe student behavioural issues and pastoral support.

The current government has attempted to improve professional development for teachers, and despite the popularity of NPQs, these plans have not been fully followed through. Teacher Professional Development remains poor compared with other professions. While doctors should complete 250 hours of CPD over the course of 5 years, according to The Working Lives of Teachers survey, on average teachers complete between 21-30 hours per year (100-150 hours for every 5 years). Time allocated to CPD is often misspent. Only 42% of schools observe all 5 INSET days, and they are too often focused on leadership priorities, rather than teacher development (⅓ of teachers surveyed said INSET days didn’t include any professional development at all). Again, this may be due to the pressures of a flawed accountability system.

Lastly, teachers report that opportunity for progression and promotion are another reason to leave the profession, which is linked to professional development. Though the government’s recent changes to the PD infrastructure in England (including the introduction of a new Early Career Framework and NPQs) have been welcomed, they have scaled back the NPQ programme early, leading to some providers dropping out.

The combination of these severe challenges together constitute a truly unprecedented crisis for the teaching profession

7.Universities are on the verge of bankruptcy

The UK higher education system is world-leading. It has among the highest graduation rates in the OECD, is the second most popular destination for foreign students and sits near the top of world university rankings. In 2021/22 UK Universities added £71bn to UK GDP, despite the government spending less proportionately than other OECD countries.

However, the sector’s financial structure is becoming more precarious. 40% are forecasting a deficit in 2023/2024 while capital expenditure is expected to fall. There are systemic reasons for these funding pressures. Tuition fees haven’t kept up with inflation, which is the primary source of funding in England. Additionally, the sector is becoming more dependent on foreign students, and this is projected to rise. This structural vulnerability comes just as the cost of the UK’s high participation reaches its peak. A demographic bulge means by 2030 there could be a million applicants across UK HE.

Universities also face increasing costs, such as mandatory access arrangements, an increased need for mental health services since covid and increases to teacher pension scheme employer contributions. In general, UK Universities tend to run a ‘high-quality, high-touch, high-cost’ model with a low staff-student ratio and undifferentiated institutions (where most universities attempt to both teach and carry out research).

This funding challenge sits in the context of an education system that yields divergent outcomes for students. Skill and productivity distributions across the UK follow a steep power law. As mentioned above, our education system currently traps students at certain systemic bottlenecks. Those in the bottom fifth of the GCSE distribution rarely catch up or earn degrees.

It also sits in the context of declining university applications. Concerningly, this includes a 15.6% drop in education and training courses, and a 8.6% drop in courses related to medicine. For Medicine students there has been a 21% decrease in applications among UK students (from 24210 to 19130 applications) Taken together with the reduced parental support for full-time schooling this might signal a declining demand for education as a whole. In the 1970s the UK saw a decline in the demand for education, precipitated by a lack of faith in the promises that education could help provide a better future. Turning around the finances of universities might be crucial to enabling them to restore faith in the potential of education.

How can we solve the polycrisis?

What does looking at the crisis in the education system as a whole (see figure 1) tell us?

We can see that the challenges compound. Poverty impacts students’ ability to learn and stay in school. Behavioural issues result in greater teacher workload, which is the key driver in reduced retention. Parents are a crucial stakeholder in the attendance crisis, and their relationships with schools is being damaged by a buckling SEND system and a penalty-based approach.

Interventions to improve the situation can also be compounding. As can be seen in figure 1, focusing on supporting parent-school relationships and teacher retention are critical pre-requisites for a healthy education system.

This analysis also suggests that the problems we face are complex and multi-faceted. They will require deep engagement with students, parents, teachers, and work between social services, the healthcare sector and education. They will also need new ideas, experimentation and short loops of implementation and feedback to solve effectively.

The aim of Renewal Lab is to support in this work by combining quality quantitative data analytics with deep qualitative insights.