How do the last five years measure up on levelling up?

~ Bruce Levitan

The IFS has issued a new report looking at the effectiveness of the Levelling Up strategy. It covers more than just education, but in the case of education it finds that

The share of pupils in England meeting the expected standards at the end of primary school has fallen from 65% in 2018–19 to 60% in June 2023

This relates to the government’s Levelling Up target that “The number of primary school children achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths will have significantly increased. In England, this will mean 90% of children will achieve the expected standard, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas will have increased by over a third.” So they conclude:

Overall, progress towards levelling up has been glacial – and, on many metrics, the UK as a whole has gone into reverse.

You can download and read their full report from their website, here.