malcolm x once said that education 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 covert 19
but the pandemic has both exacerbated
them and made them more visible
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while the standard of education varies
greatly globally education inequality
happens at the local level in all
countries
for example only 4 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 uk germany and the us 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 us and the uk have
some of the highest levels of income
inequality among
oecd countries in the uk 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 uk
lagged their peers by more than eight
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
9 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 uk is home to some
very famous private schools like eaton
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
costs around 56
000 for just one year of a child's
tuition
but even that is dwarfed by private
schools in switzerland such as la rosa
which costs more than 135
000 dollars per year many believe that
private education is at the root of
inequality
and reduces the chances for those
students who attend state schools
the statistics tell us that educational
privilege provides significant
advantages
and opens many doors in the uk nearly a
third of members of parliament
two-thirds of the country's top doctors
and 74 percent of judges were privately
educated
the exam results also reflect the
disparity in 2019 45.7 percent of
students at private schools in the uk
got a star or a's in their final year
exams compared to the national average
of 25.5 percent
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
of the city yet the exam performance of
students here
is well above national average vanessa
ogden is the head teacher 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 coven 19 pandemic may have undone
much of that work
we know from the research that uh
covid19 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 stationary 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 covid19 has exacerbated the
disadvantage gap
one big reason is the digital divide
but it's also a resource divide in
general 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 10 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
increased 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 coven 19 pandemic also impacted
students in the uk progressing to
university
due to exams being cancelled during the
lockdown results were given based on an
algorithm that critics claim dragged
down 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
student's teachers
so what can be done to reduce education
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 kept 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
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 uh
out of difficult situations um it's also
a means of
moving yourself up the the you know the
tree in terms of prosperity
um and not just financial prosperity but
also
your kind of sort 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 income
inequality however
is likely to grow due to the covert 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 that
there's 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
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