Former Boris Johnson catch-up leader hits out at Tories over GCSE North-South split

Sir Kevan Collins, who resigned in 2021 over the government's miserable catch-up plans, said ministers had 'made a huge mistake' in n not investing in reviving education. after Covid

This week's GCSE results revealed a sharp divide in top grades between the north and south of England (

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Boris Johnson's former catch-up manager has blamed the failure of efforts to help children recover from the Covid disruptions that caused the deep North-South divide in GCSE results.

Sir Kevan Collins, who left office in 2021 due to the Government's miserable catch-up plans, said ministers had "made a huge mistake" in failing to invest in helping children recover from the havoc wrought on their education by the pandemic. GCSE results released this week revealed a gap between the number of pupils in the North East achieving top marks and their peers in London.

Sir Kevan has stepped down in dramatic fashion after his calls for a £14billion catch-up scheme were rejected. Instead, the government pledged just £1.4billion, a tenth of what it had asked for. He told the Observer: "I'm not comfortable with the idea of ​​'I told you so.' let's get this and fix it.'"

Former catch-up czar Sir Kevan Collins has resigned in protest at the government's Covid stimulus plans (

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He said the government had "failed the children". Children without adequate support from school or family "have been hit really hard in ways that I couldn't have imagined at the time," he said.

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Some 22% of GCSE enrollments scored 7/A or above this year, up from 26.3% last year, after efforts to bring grades back to pre-pandemic levels. Results remained higher than in 2019 (20.8%) - before lockdowns forced children out of class for months.

Only 17.6% of teenagers in the North East achieved the highest grades, compared to 28.4% in London, a difference of 10.8 percentage points. The gap between the North East and the capital was 10.2 percentage points last year - and it has been growing every year since 2017.

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