The loss of Sir Kevan Collins is a scandal

Sir Kevan Collins was uniquely suited to lead the catch-up efforts. His resignation will leave schools reeling, writes Jon Severs
11th June 2021, 12:05am
Covid Catch-up: Sir Kevan Collins Was The Ideal Person To Lead Education Recovery, Writes Jon Severs

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The loss of Sir Kevan Collins is a scandal

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/loss-sir-kevan-collins-scandal

Sir Kevan Collins is a difficult interview. The former chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, who last week resigned as education recovery commissioner, is not evasive. Instead, he is clinical and focused; no word is spoken without its contribution to his main objective being weighed up. That he can be warm and fantastic company at the same time is a marvel, even if he does leave you struggling to adorn your piece with colour.

What is that objective? For Sir Kevan, improving the lives of disadvantaged children is always paramount; everything else is noise. So he has no interest in giving you anecdotes or personal revelations, as those are a distraction from the important stuff: the stories of the swathes of children left behind by education with no coherent government plan to get them back on track.

He’s been highlighting those children for as long as I have known him, and his work at the EEF was focused entirely on trying to adjust the trajectories of their lives.

So, when the pandemic made catch-up a political priority, it made sense that the government would turn to Sir Kevan.

He was the most suited and best qualified for the job, but he was on brand, too: the government has spoken at length about evidence-informed education. Arguably, Sir Kevan has done more to make this kind of education a reality than anyone else, with his role at the EEF pushing it into every school, primarily through the Teaching and Learning Toolkit, first established by professors Steve Higgins and Lee Elliot Major.

Yet the relationship between Sir Kevan and the government always seemed doomed.

Covid catch-up: Sir Kevan Collins was the right person for the job 

We know from the past few years that any mention of “best evidence” in government policy has an unspoken caveat - “for our aims”. Sir Kevan would have had no time for such political machinations. We know that while he will have focused all of his attention on the data pouring in - data that repeatedly made it clear that children who were already behind had fallen further back due to the pandemic - the government will have had half an eye on the opinion polls and focus group reports showing perceptions of government spending and selectively leaked educational recovery ideas.

We know that Sir Kevan will have avoided grandstanding and based his advice on a real understanding of the data and schools. This will have frustrated ministers who like to dictate the news.

Yet we all hoped for success. The issue was too high-profile and too urgent, and too much had been promised for it all to fall away. That hope was misplaced. The funding announced last week was, as the NAHT school leaders’ union put it, a “damp squib”. The promises of future funding were vague. It’s clear that, at least in the short term when they need it most, the help schools will get to tackle not just the disadvantage they are witnessing but also the high expectations of parents for interventions will be as minimal as the government can get away with.

Sir Kevan had no choice but to walk. And out of the door of No 10 went a hell of a lot of knowledge. No one has looked at the problem of educational inequality stemming from the pandemic longer and harder than him. No one has had access to the data and combined it with the experience he has.

How this has been allowed to happen is a story that needs to be told. But it’s likely it won’t be. Sir Kevan knows it best, and he won’t tell it. Not unless he is forced to. He won’t play that political game. He won’t get involved in the power play between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. That’s just noise. For him, the only thing we should be talking about right now is how to catch up those children who are educationally disadvantaged. Frustrating as that is for a journalist, I know he’s right.

@jon_severs

This article originally appeared in the 11 June 2021 issue under the headline “It’s a scandal that we’ve just lost the ideal person to lead catch-up”

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