Gavin Williamson’s calamitous record is shameful – young people deserve better

As exam results are handed out in the coming days, we should remember that the education secretary has failed to deliver the opportunities and investment that is needed

Johnson has to explain why Williamson still has a job (PA)

This week 782,000 pupils will receive their A-level, GCSE and BTEC results in the most challenging of circumstances. Young people have battled through two years of unprecedented uncertainty and disruption to their learning.

I have spoken to hundreds of students this year and to their credit, they remain optimistic, and have high aspirations for the future. But they have been let down time and again by a Conservative government which is showing no ambition for their futures.

Last summer, the government’s disastrous handling of exam results threatened young people’s university, training and employment opportunities. Since then, the Conservatives have had a whole year to get a fair system in place for this summer, recognising the disruption and time out of school experienced by pupils. Yet once again, instead of a proper plan, we have seen last-minute decision making, uncertainty and huge additional stress for students and teachers.

This was all entirely avoidable. Back in the autumn, Labour, teachers and young people called for clarity. We asked for a plan B in case exams couldn’t go ahead, and set out recommendations for a system that would be truly fair to all students. But our pleas were dismissed. In early December, Gavin Williamson told parliament he was “absolutely certain” that summer exams would go ahead. On 30 December, he reassured BTEC students that their January exams, just days away, would continue as planned.

Just five days later, summer exams were cancelled, and January exams thrown into chaos as the government abdicated leadership and left individual colleges to decide whether to cancel or push ahead with them.

This chaos and disruption was compounded by the education secretary waiting a further three months to provide schools with the information they needed to start determining grades in place of exams. Twelve weeks of students not knowing if every piece of work might become an exam piece, of stress and confusion, of teachers being left in the dark unable to support their pupils.

And while students and teachers wanted flexibility, the absence of all national leadership has seen some pupils taking more than 20 exams while others have done just a couple. Students have seen friends down the road assessed under one system while they experienced another. Research shows that while private schools were more likely to give pupils advance notice of questions and run "open book" assessments, teachers in deprived schools were more likely to report the support they received to award grades was insufficient. Meanwhile, the government has failed to account for the unequal experience of lost learning which has hit pupils on free school meals and those without the equipment to learn from home the hardest.

This chaotic lack of leadership is part of a pattern. The Conservatives have repeatedly let down children and young people, whether it was allowing them to be presented with insulting free school meals parcels to inadequate provision of laptops to the threat of a cut to their parents’ universal credit. Pupils have been provided with less than an hour of tutoring a fortnight – hopelessly inadequate for children who’ve missed over half a year of in-person school.

And this summer, over half a million year 11 students are leaving secondary school without any additional support to recover the learning or time with friends they have missed. Nearly 2 million children will leave school over the next four years without receiving any additional support whatsoever.

But the Conservatives don’t seem to care. Even their own expert adviser labelled their paltry recovery plan as “too small, too narrow and too slow” as he resigned in protest at it.

The education secretary’s calamitous record should be a source of shame for this government. This disregard for young people, their future life chances and our country’s future prosperity is a damning indictment of the Conservatives’ failed Covid-19 response which could scar our country for decades

But the responsibility for these failings is not Williamson’s alone. The blame must lie firmly at the feet of the prime minister. Boris Johnson has to explain why Williamson still has a job despite this catalogue of chaos, and why he has not lifted a finger to deliver the opportunities, investment and support young people need.

As we look ahead to the coming days, my message to young people getting their results this week is that you deserve better. The Conservatives have shown no understanding of what you’ve been through, your concerns and anxieties.

Worse still, they have failed to recognise your hard work, commitment and ambition. Labour are in awe of your resilience and your ability to adapt to changing circumstances. That’s why we will keep fighting for you, this summer, next year and into the future.

Kate Green is shadow secretary of state for education and Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston