{"id":102372,"date":"2025-05-15T02:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/102372\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T02:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:30:15","slug":"talent-is-everywhere-in-britain-opportunity-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/102372\/","title":{"rendered":"Talent is everywhere in Britain \u2013 opportunity is not"},"content":{"rendered":"

While 18% of free schools meals pupils from London are in the top 20% of earners at age 28, only 7% of those from the North East are in that same bracket, as are 7% from the North West and 7% from Yorkshire and the Humber.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s Opportunity Mission<\/a> aims to address these issues, but the data here shows the sheer scale of the challenge they face. To close the gap in opportunity, major changes will be needed both throughout the education system, and in the wider economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the education system, gaps open up early, before children even start at school. Ensuring all children, regardless of socio-economic background, can access at least 20 hours of early education at three and four would be a great first step to widen opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In the school system, a change that could be made at no additional cost to government is rebalancing the national funding formula<\/a> back towards schools serving the most disadvantaged communities.<\/p>\n

Incentivising the best teachers to work in the most disadvantaged schools, alongside funding for evidence-backed interventions like tutoring, would also help, alongside restoring pupil premium funding in real terms and expanding it to cover students in post-16 institutions.<\/p>\n

But regardless of changes made in the classroom, pupils cannot learn effectively if they\u2019re hungry. While the government\u2019s breakfast clubs are a positive first step, more needs to be done to end hunger in schools \u2013 including expanding free school meal eligibility to all children in families receiving universal credit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After school, government should work to widen access to both vocational and academic pathways, by incentivising more employers to take on apprentices, as well as redoubling efforts on university access.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately though, opportunities for social mobility will only be available nationwide if there is a more even spread of economic opportunities across the country. We need a sustained effort across government, potentially including greater devolution of powers and reforms to funding for local government, as well as greater investment in infrastructure regionally \u2013 including transport.<\/p>\n

In a country that is increasingly fragmented, it is more important than ever to ensure every young person, no matter what family they come from or where they grew up, has an equal chance to succeed.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Montacute is head of research and policy at the Sutton Trust. Read the full report and see the findings of your constituency on an interactive map.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.\u00a0To support our work buy a copy of the magazine<\/a>\u00a0or get the app from the\u00a0App Store<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Google Play<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While 18% of free schools meals pupils from London are in the top 20% of earners at age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,2266,393,47306,4884,897,11525,257,1144,391,18266,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-102372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-free-school-meals","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-jobs","16":"tag-learning-and-employment","17":"tag-london","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-opinion","20":"tag-poverty","21":"tag-scotland","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114509501227742636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}