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  • Malcolm X once said thatEducation is the passport to the future.”

  • But what if some passports are better than others,

  • giving the holder access to better schools and teachers

  • and, in turn, a more prosperous future?

  • These inequalities have been around long before Covid-19,

  • and yet, the pandemic has both exacerbated them and made them more visible.

  • While the standard of education varies greatly globally,

  • education inequality happens at the local level in all countries.

  • For example, only four out of every 100 children in Africa

  • is expected to enter a graduate and postgraduate institution,

  • compared to 14 out of 100 in South and West Asia

  • and 36 out of 100 in Latin America.

  • Even in developed countries, the quality of schooling can differ greatly,

  • whether rich or poor.

  • High national wealth then, is no guarantee of high equality.

  • The U.K., Germany and the U.S. are among the richest countries in the world, but all three rank poorly

  • on an educational inequality league table of 41 of the world's richest countries.

  • By the middle of secondary school, educational inequalities are worse

  • than in other countries with much smaller economies such as Latvia, Spain and Estonia.

  • However, research has shown that child development is linked with income.

  • Unsurprisingly, the U.S. and the U.K. have some of the

  • highest levels of income inequality among OECD countries.

  • In the U.K., there has been a significant lack of social mobility since 1945.

  • As wealth inequality has remained high, there hasn't been much change

  • in how well British children are doing at school.

  • In a 2019 report by the education coalition Fair Education Alliance,

  • pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in the U.K. lag their peers by more than 8 months

  • in reading, writing and maths by age 11.

  • Children from persistently disadvantaged backgrounds are 22 months behind,

  • by the time they finish their school career. Small progress has been made

  • in helping some children almost beat the odds and overcome the barriers that face them

  • but the systemic underlying factors of our education system

  • still remain, which mean we're not ever reaching the most persistently disadvantaged.

  • So, what are the contributing factors of education inequality among children?

  • According to Unicef, a child's educational progress is linked to their family background.

  • What kind of jobs the parents have or whether the child is a first generation immigrant

  • can affect the likelihood of them continuing into higher education.

  • Inequality between genders is also apparent from a young age and tends to grow as children get older.

  • Reading abilities among girls are generally better than boys by the age of nine

  • and, in turn, that discrepancy is more likely to continue in education beyond secondary school.

  • And finally, which school you go to can have a significant impact on your academic performance.

  • In many countries, the debate on inequality in education is seen

  • through the prism of private schools versus state schools.

  • The U.K. is home to some very famous private schools like Eton College and Harrow School, behind me.

  • Of the 55 British prime ministers, nearly half were educated at just these two schools,

  • along with prominent actors, writers, scientists and royalty from across the world.

  • To compare, the entire state school education in England of a young person starting from nursery

  • costs an average of around $96,000. The annual school fees at Harrow, however,

  • cost around $56,000 for just one year of a child's tuition.

  • But even that is dwarfed by private schools in Switzerland

  • such as Le Rosey which costs more than $135,000 per year.

  • Many believe that private education is at the root of inequality

  • and reduces the chances for those children who attend state schools.

  • The statistics tell us that educational privilege provides significant advantages and opens many doors.

  • In the U.K., nearly a third of members of parliament, two-thirds of the country's top doctors

  • and 74% of judges were privately educated. The exam results also reflect the disparity.

  • In 2019, 45.7% of students at private schools in the U.K.

  • got A* or As in their final year exams compared to the national average of 25.5%.

  • But there are some state funded schools that buck that trend.

  • This is Mulberry School for Girls in east London.

  • It's located in one of the most disadvantaged areas in the city,

  • yet the exam performance of students here is well above national average.

  • Vanessa Ogden is the headteacher here, and for the last 15 years,

  • has been instrumental in seeing many of her pupils overturn the odds.

  • As a headteacher, how do you, in your role, help to tackle education inequality?

  • The first really important way is to have students leave with a really great set of qualifications

  • and really great destinations to either university or apprenticeships

  • and so that's the driving force, but of course,

  • inequality brings with it many structural difficulties in your life.

  • But while the pupils at Mulberry School have outperformed their peers for many years,

  • the Covid-19 pandemic may have undone much of that work.

  • We know from the research that Covid-19 has disproportionately affected

  • people of Black, Asian and minority ethnic background and those are the families mainly that we serve

  • and so not only has there been real difficulty around finance and resources,

  • but also real difficulty around health. The very first thing that reared its head

  • was period poverty, female students not being able to get sanitary products.

  • We hadn't realized that really in a way schools are the providers of some of those things.

  • Stationery as well. So if you don't have money or if the shops are shut

  • and you don't have stationery in the home.

  • And we lent out all the devices that we could, so that they could learn at home.

  • In terms of the reasons why Covid-19 has exacerbated the disadvantage gap,

  • one big reason is the digital divide, but it's also a resource divide in general.

  • So some families might not have access to laptops to access online learning.

  • They might not have a lot of space. The little progress we have made over the last ten years

  • is likely to have been reversed by lockdown. So what was already a dire situation

  • has been turned into quite a crisis.

  • The pandemic also highlighted another aspect of education inequality: private tuition.

  • By mid-April, there were nationwide school closures in more than 190 countries,

  • affecting more than 1.5 billion learners.

  • This led to an unprecedented demand for online teaching.

  • Some online tutoring platforms saw the number of daily users increase by 1,125% in two weeks.

  • In Singapore, there have even been calls to ban the private tuition industry

  • in an attempt to close the achievement gap.

  • The Covid-19 pandemic also impacted students in the U.K. progressing to university.

  • Due to exams being canceled during the lockdown, results were given based on an algorithm,

  • that critics claimed dragged dow high-achieving pupils in low-achieving schools,

  • compounding the inequalities they face.

  • The Department of Education and the exam boards initially responded by claiming there was no bias,

  • whether on the grounds of deprivation, gender or ethnicity.

  • However, they eventually reversed their decision, with grades instead estimated by the students'teachers.

  • So, what can be done to reduce educational inequalities both here and around the world?

  • A former Singaporean education minister said in 2018 that there should be

  • a broader definition of merit to recognize a wider range of skills.

  • We should double up on meritocracy, broaden its definition

  • to embrace various talents and skills. We should not cap achievement at the top,

  • but try harder, work harder, to lift the bottom.

  • The Fair Education Alliance also believes there is too much reliance on exams

  • and that education should be more holistic to include building aptitude and values.

  • We want an education system which develops skills

  • and social and emotional competencies alongside academic attainment,

  • we want teachers and leaders to be rewarded for serving the most disadvantaged students,

  • we want to engage parents and communities from all backgrounds in the education system

  • and we want to prepare young people for what comes after school.

  • Education is a way out of difficult situations. It's also a means of moving yourself up the tree

  • in terms of prosperity, and not just financial prosperity

  • but also your kind of spiritual and cultural prosperity as well.

  • It's also the case that a policy that works in one country or region may not work in another.

  • Economic inequality, however, is likely to grow due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

  • This means that creating better education systems is increasingly important

  • so that a child's starting point in life doesn't determine their future.

  • You have to be an optimist,

  • otherwise you'd pack up and go home in education, you know, you have to believe there is hope.

  • Hi guys. Thanks for watching our video.

  • I'd like to know how your schooling has affected your future.

  • What are the education systems like in the country you live in?

  • Comment below the video to let us know, and remember, subscribe.

Malcolm X once said thatEducation is the passport to the future.”

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