Good education chances – available for every child?

Good education is associated with good future across the world. The UK government claims to be trying to break the cycle of child poverty investing millions of pounds in improving education system. Their strategies are not always approved though. Tamila Varshalomidze tries to find out - why?

DCSF Child Poverty Unit spokesperson Paul Campbell insists that one of the strategic principles, what the government’s approach to eradicating child poverty by 2020 is based on, is improving children’s life chances so poverty is not transmitted down the generations.

“We must ensure that children’s experiences early on do not limit their life chances in the future. Lower educational achievement, poor health or unemployment should not be pre-determined by a child’s situation,” he says.

Child Poverty Action Group claims though that the government is not recognising the extent to which child poverty drives educational failure and that improvements require more support for poor families.

“Policy makers and political parties are focusing on the wrong areas: on endless reforms of school management structures, disciplinary ethos and ownership of schools,” CPAG spokesperson Tim Nichols insists.

Chair of London Child Poverty Commission Kate Green insists that the government have been able to decrease educational problems that children in poverty face in London.



“There has been a concentrated effort to raise standards in London schools through a project called Capital Ambition. Poorest schools were pulled up to the standards of the best, teaching efforts and educational resources were concentrated on children who needed more help,” she adds.

Save the Children spokesperson Rachel Bhatia insists that poor children don’t do so good at school as rich children mainly because their parents can’t provide them with all the books at home. Besides, their parents don’t have time to sit down and do their homework with them, because often parents are working long hours to get them going.

She tells more about the problems poor children face on their way to education:

“If you are working even part-time, your children lose free school meals and school trips. That’s not fair. You need at least £10 a week for lunch of each child and I have three of them; I’m really struggling,” says single mum Tanya Murphy from Bournemouth.

Margaret Lochrie, director of a public interest body Capacity, that does a mixture of research, training and consultancy about child poverty, says that poverty is very closely correlated with poorer educational outcomes.

“Statistically if you are born in poverty, you’re less likely to gain, for example, 5 GCSE at level two; much more likely to leave school without qualification,” she adds.

End Child Poverty London Development Manager Liz Thorne agrees with her and adds: “Poverty predicts educational outcomes in the UK more strongly than in any other OECD countries. The cost of free education is estimated as being £1300 per child, which 55% of families in the two lowest income groups struggle to meet.”