The Mayor of the East Midlands has called for urgent action from the government to address the ongoing education crisis in the region.
This comes as the East Midlands faces stark educational disparities, and has seen Mayor Claire Ward promising to play a leading role in ensuring that crucial stakeholders are brought together to address those challenges.
Not long after A Level and GCSE results were released, the mayor has now written a letter to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to highlight concerns about those results – which have seen the region fall to the bottom of the national league tables. With less than one in five East Midlands pupils achieving good GCSE grades, issues around the region are compounded by gaps in university admission, an example of which can be seen in how areas such as Ashfield only see 22% of 18 year olds go to university whilst similarly deprived areas in London have a university admission rate of almost half.
Mayor Claire Ward said:
“The disparities in educational attainment between regions is totally unacceptable. There is no reason why young people in the East Midlands should have fewer opportunities than those in other parts of the country. We’ve got to address the barriers that are holding our region back.
“The skills gap is a persistent challenge for businesses in our region. We have some incredible employers who can offer fantastic career opportunities, but not if our young people are entering the workforce with lower qualifications than their peers across the country.”
Should education continue to falter in the region, local employers will continue to struggle to recruit skilled workers, with this then impacting economic growth. This factor has also led to the mayor outlining how the workforce still requires a strong foundational education in order to fill spaces on apprenticeships and other vocational training opportunities.
To try and drive improvement in education, the mayor has stated her willingness to work alongside the government to bring about the changes necessary to bridge the gap between the East Midlands and other regions.
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