My blog

Category: Opinion

  • Opinion: it’s time to prepare for the post-Covid reality of hybrid working

    Opinion: it’s time to prepare for the post-Covid reality of hybrid working

    Stuart Thomson

    As we move towards a return of some normality and potentially the end of social distancing, more of us are focusing on a return to the workplace.  We all need to think about what we want from that return and recognise where careers could fall apart.

    While most of us are celebrating being able to return to the office, see colleagues and attend networking events, few of us see ourselves back in the office full time. As employer policies on agile working start to be published, the vast majority are trying to strike a balance between home working and office working.

    But that may not suit everyone, especially those at the start of building their careers.

    The old ways of learning and gaining experiences from a team based in an office have, in effect, been demolished by Covid-19.  The chance of working in a single team or alongside one person who would take responsibility to lead and mentor is much diminished.  These people simply will not be around as much to learn from.

    That is not necessarily all bad, as it could involve being exposed to a wider range of styles to learn from, but it will make it much more difficult to manage.  For those starting out, they must try to grab more control, and responsibility for their own careers from the outset.  We are all just starting to work through the new reality, and no one can claim to have all the answers.

    So, what are some of the questions we should be thinking about?

    Do you have the ability to manage upwardly?  We all need to have a way of making our voices heard and not get left behind. Those in management roles need to be listening and action plans need to be developed as a consequence.

    Are the reporting lines clear?  If you end up in a situation where you work with whoever happens to be in the office that day, do you have a way to manage your time and capture feedback? No one person will see you in the way that would have been the case in the past.

    How is work assigned to you and how do you maintain your visibility?  Being in the office is one thing – people knowing that you are there is another.  However, even when a manager is in the office, they will try to maximise the productivity of their time as they see it.  That could mean spending time with papers they may not otherwise have access to or, more likely, trying to have meetings with those who are around. So, facetime could ironically be even more difficult to achieve.

    There is a clear danger of an inequality emerging in the workplace between those who feel that they have to spend more time in the office and those more established members who see no real reason to be in the office that often.

    I’ve often considered the virtual Covid world to be the easier part of the adaptation in the workplace. More difficult is the more hybrid approach of some in the office and some out.  If we are all virtual that is one thing but how do workplaces cope with a ‘some in, some out’ position?  Again, these pressures will be worse for newer team members.

    If employers are not being clear about any of this then it is all our roles to hold them to account. Ask employers what they are proposing. They should be thinking about your interests and talking to you about their plans.

    The writer is Head of Public Affairs at BDB Pitmans

  • How philanthropy became an industry

    How philanthropy became an industry

    Georgia Heneage

    You may not have heard of him but last week Matt Moulding became Britain’s most generous man.

    The son of a road-surfacer, Moulding is self-made: he left school at 16 to work in a local felt factory but returned to finish A-Levels after being tracked down by his economics teacher, who believed that he had great potential. He then worked for various tech firms before setting up The Hut Group, which floated on the stock exchange last September for £4.5 billion. Moulding has decided to give £100 million pounds of it to a domestic abuse charity -100% of which he could have received in rent payments from the business.

    Such instances of generous philanthropy are not uncommon in an era in which billionaires are multiplying at a staggering rate – most of them tech oligarchs – at the same time as world poverty is soaring and the climate collapsing. Lord Sainsbury, the UK’s second biggest philanthropist, has donated tens of billions in the past decade to the Liberal Democrats, the arts, education and humanitarian sector, and the British Museum – to name a few.

    But as a well-established and well-structured sector, what does charity mean in the modern age?

    To answer this question we might revisit the complex and long-standing origins of ‘philanthropy’. It’s earliest form was almsgiving (giving money to the poor) in the medieval period, which was rooted in religious duty. In the 16th century more secular concepts of charity emerged from the schism between Catholic and Protestant (and their competing notions of what charity should be) during the reformation.

    Then, at the beginning of the 17th century, Elizabeth I introduced a law making charities more accountable, after which the first legal definition of charities was created. This went on to form the basis of UK charity law.

    The sector became much more systematic around the late 18th century, when modern concepts of corporations as standalone legal units began taking shape, and philanthropists pooled resources and combined their efforts.

    Then, of course, came the Victorian age, where philanthropy sky-rocketed: the industrial revolution and the ubiquity of manufacturing jobs brought about increased poverty, and this led to more state involvement in welfare issues. With the onset of liberal politics and the Labour movement in the 20th century, philanthropy was brought under the bureaucratic wing of the government.

    So where does this leave us now? Today philanthropy is so widespread that quite apart from roles within the charities themselves, ancillary jobs have grown up around the industry. Lawyers might specialise in charities. Bates Wells is arguably preeminent in the area, with Farrer & Co. another revered firm which offers opportunities. Banks and investment firms have professionals dedicated to advising clients on the ‘giving’ aspect of their portfolios. The charities themselves are more and more run like businesses, meaning that they require advice on a whole range of issues from HR and tech, to transactional activity and litigation aspects.

    In 2021, the cultural prevalence of identity politics and human rights issues has fostered renewed interest in philanthropy. And Covid-19 has, as ever, made its mark in this sector too: charitable actions during the pandemic – such as the late captain Captain Sir Tom Moore’s charity walk or the countless other marathons people did in their back gardens – may be an indicator of a population shaken into giving back to the community and helping others during a collective crisis.

    The figures certainly show this: according to a 2020 report by Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), though less face-to-face interactions during Covid meant physical fundraising declined, large and sustained “cashless” donations and general trust in charities increased.

    Between January and June 2020, the public donated a total of £5.4 billion to charity – an increase of £800 million compared to the same period in 2019. And the charity sector may be one of the few positive instances of digitalization; research shows that social media is the biggest inspirer of donations and emails the biggest format of donating.

    Yet a cursory glance over the history of philanthropy is enough to see how it has gradually changed from well-meaning charitable acts of well-endowed individuals to an industrialised sector; and how, in some instances, it’s been enveloped by the competitive wing of capitalism.

    There has been a worrying number of cases of corruption and misspend funds in the charity sector, which has given rise to nicknaming some large charities “briefcase NGOs”- where the funding system is warped so that money goes directly into the pockets of those who run the organisation. As one Guardian article suggests, many NGOs start out with “noble intentions” – intentions which are soon corrupted by international funding agencies which “dictate” the terms and cause the NGOs to realign their priorities with those of the patrons.

    It is proving difficult for charities to maintain integrity in the brittle and competitive world of NGOs; yet as the faultlines between the rich and poor widen, and the environmental crisis we face grows nearer, philanthropy’s role will become ever more necessary. Individual endowments – such as those given by the likes of Moulding, Lord Sainsbury and Bill Gates – are diamonds in the rough. But for ordinary people who want to give back and whose pockets are not so heavy, the path needs to become more transparent.

  • Opinion: It’s time to try the four-day working week

    Opinion: It’s time to try the four-day working week

    Patrick Crowder

    Nicola Sturgeon has promised a four-day work week for Scotland if the Scottish National Party is re-elected in May. This announcement came alongside promises of increased NHS funding, free dentistry, and another referendum on Scottish independence. 

    The pandemic has raised questions about the need for the traditional office, as well as concerns about a healthy work-life balance. 

    The SNP manifesto, which was published yesterday, states that “Covid-19 changed the way we work almost overnight,” and that the party wants “to do more to support people (to) achieve a healthy work-life balance.”

    According to his spokesperson, Boris Johnson currently “has no plans” to introduce a decreased work week in the UK. 

    Looking to history, the four-day week follows a trend in decreasing hours which dates back to the industrial revolution. Before the 1920s, workers often laboured for over 70 hours a week. Henry Ford’s introduction of the 40-hour, five-day work week at his factories laid the foundation for the schedule we operate on today. 

    With so many people now working from home, many have noticed that their jobs take significantly less time than their traditional hours allowed for. This does not necessarily mean that people waste time at work purposefully, but instead it could point to increased productivity in a less stressful environment.

    A 2013 Stanford study showed that productivity at a Chinese travel agency rose by 13% when employees were allowed to work from home at least one day a week. Through employee satisfaction surveys, that same study also showed that employees were happier when they worked from home. Even if Britain is not ready to take Fridays off completely, this shows that productivity can be increased with just one fewer day in the office.

    Spain recently became the latest country to trial the four-day working week. Companies which take part will operate on 32 hours a week and receive funding from the government to avoid lowering employees’ wages. If Spain’s experiment proves effective, it will force other countries to reconsider their own working practices going forward.

    Spain will spend about £44 million on the program, while the SNP promises to “establish a £10 million fund to allow companies to pilot and explore the benefits of a four-day working week.”

    The shift towards a four-day work week differs from the “compressed” work schedule already offered by some employers across the UK. Rather than decrease hours with no pay cut, a compressed schedule redistributes normal hours across fewer days. 

    A 2018 study into the causes of work impairment conducted at an Australian mining company found that stress was a major cause of lack of productivity. Out of 893 employees, 375 reported that they felt stressed at work, and over 20% of stressed employees reported that they needed to take at least one day off work in the past month. 

    Criticisms of the compressed schedule include increased stress, rushed work, and increased pressure from employers to complete the same volume of work in a shorter time period. We know that employees work more productively in lower stress environments, so it is important to make sure that efforts to free people from the five-day week are not counterproductive.

    The foundation of our working schedule has remained essentially stagnant for 100 years. As times change with automation, faster computing, and the ability to work from home, it is time to establish a new standard of work which will benefit both employer and employee.

    The success or failure of this new model will fundamentally change the way we think about work, and soon the Friday productivity slump may be a thing of the past.

    —————————————————————————————————————-

    Australian mining study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6339264/

    Stanford work from home study: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment

    Photo credit:  Krisztina Papp on Unsplash

  • Chuks Iloegbunam: Letter from Nigeria

    Chuks Iloegbunam: Letter from Nigeria

    Without a significant move by the UK government, Africa’s most populous country will implode, writes Chuks Iloegbunam 

    Thanks to social media, news of the massacre of peaceful protesters in Lekki, Lagos, rapidly spread throughout the world. How did it happen that, in apparently democratic Nigeria, soldiers opened fire on their fellow citizens peacefully protesting systemic police brutality by waving the Nigerian flag and singing the national anthem? 

    Lekki needs to be put in context. Even in colonial Nigeria, massacres were commonplace. When the civil war came in 1967, it accentuated the devaluation of human life. At the war’s end in 1970, millions lay dead, finished off by indiscriminate bombing and strafing, as well as starvation and protein malnutrition. 

    It is a country which doesn’t look after its young. Youth unemployment stands at 13.9 million according to the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which also states that the Nigerian youth population eligible for work is a staggering 40 million. 

    Insecurity caused by Boko Haram terrorists, Fulani herdsmen terrorists and Niger Delta militants are often cited as reasons for this, but a sizeable portion of the unemployed are also unemployable due to the lack of basic skills. The country lacks the sort of social security taken for granted in Britain and elsewhere in Europe and North America. There are no unemployment benefits. As a matter of fact, the employed are often owed unpaid salaries for upwards of ten months, even years. 

    The government also has a history of keeping this state of affairs in position – and again it does so with violence. On February 1, 1971, Kunle Adepeju, an undergraduate of the University of Ibadan was killed during a students’ demonstration against poor catering services. The Police claimed that a stray bullet from one of its guns had felled Adepeju. The nation was scandalised. The university was shut down and a board of inquiry instituted to determine what truly happened.  

    Many other examples might be cited – from the Bakalori massacrre on 28th April 1980 to the destruction of Odi on November 20th 1999. It is a long and melancholy history of government suppression.  

    Today, Nigeria boasts about 172 tertiary institutions, annually churning out tens of thousands of young men and women with little hope of employment. Only unserious societies remain blissfully uncaring about the place and disposition of alienated youths about half of whom have been trained in the sciences and have at their fingertips the knowhow to upset the applecart. 

    Graduates with intent to do business or go into manufacturing are hampered by lack of funds. The government has not created any new industries in the last five years. It has not paid any attention to setting up new refineries. 

    The national currency, the Naira, has continued to plummet in value. There was a time when the naira was superior to both the dollar and the pound sterling. But $1 today exchanges for anything between N400 and N450. 

    The displacement of whole populations that end up across Nigerian borders, or inside Internally Displaced People’s (IDPs) camps mean a devaluation of farming, grave loss to incomes and hikes in food prices. 

    But the world is changing – and Nigeria with it.  In 2015, earthmoving equipment was used to dig mass graves into which hundreds of slain Shiites were buried. But video clips of the dastardly act are in existence. Now, nearly everyone wields the immense power that is the cell phone. For this, grotesqueries like Lekki rebuff concealment. In real time, the massacre was filmed and transmitted across the globe. Official denials that it happened have been quite thoroughly discredited through credible investigations by various standards-setting organisations, including CNN. 

    Bizarrely, the authorities are hounding those thought to have led the #endSARS demonstrations, instead of addressing their grievances. They are confiscating passports, freezing bank accounts and shoving into detention people guilty only of participating in peaceful demonstrations. In this regard, informed Nigerians cannot get over Britain’s taciturnity in relation to a country it colonised and in which it still wields incomparable influence. In fact, repeated Downing Street administrations are seen as complicit in Nigeria’s determined abysmal plunge.  

    This complicity may explain why the International Criminal Court (ICC) which indicted al-Bashir has not considered a similar action on certain Nigerians whose wantonness makes the former Sudanese dictator to look like a Sunday school teacher. That is why British opinion influencers with conscience must look beyond Whitehall and systematically mobilise voices to interrogate Nigeria before it implodes. 

    Iloegbunam is a Nigerian journalist and novelist. 

    Photo credit: Joshua Oluwagbemiga on Unsplash

  • Omar Sabbagh’s Letter from Dubai: ‘As soon as it was safe enough to reopen, that was done’

    Omar Sabbagh’s Letter from Dubai: ‘As soon as it was safe enough to reopen, that was done’

    Academic, poet and essayist Omar Sabbagh airs his worries for the younger generation in Dubai  

    Over the course of the last year, I have felt quite fortunate to live and work in Dubai. Whether during the period between spring and summer 2020, when lockdown regulations meant you had to apply for a permit to go from one place to the next (via a user-friendly app), or whether it was the rigors of the rules about numbers permitted in cars, taxis and social gatherings, the high levels of technological efficiency proved to be a blessing here. 

    So Dubai has been a comparatively good place to be during lockdown. Malls, for instance, immediately set up mass temperature monitors at their entrances. The university where I teach built a new gate and passageway at its entrance for this purpose. In pandemic times, a highly monitored society, with efficient avenues for top-down governmental action, puts the ‘brotherhood’ into any pat notion of ‘Big Brother.’   

    Of course, Dubai – and the UAE more generally – has suffered economically, like anywhere else in the world.  Things have contracted: shops for a long while curtailed their hours of availability; work hours in the second half of 2020 were shortened; and there are fewer jobs.  A close relative spoke of laying-off a third of his staff, and having to halve salaries in Q3 of 2020. Another was forced to take paid leave for a month from his sales job in retail.  

    That said, it was announced early on that the government would take keen action to make sure the country would be protected. Tourism – an important aspect of Dubai’s economy – has also suffered, but it was clear to all that as soon as it was safe enough to reopen that was done. I myself have travelled more than three times in the last year, needing only to follow PCR-testing regulations. Returning to Dubai, it usually takes less than 24 hours for your PCR-test at the airport to ping as an SMS on your phone. The services have always been stellar here. 

    I have been teaching, too, since spring last year, online and at times via a new ‘Hyflex’ system, whereby students can opt during registration, to attend in person or remotely, online.  For teachers like myself this involved a scramble to learn new technologies in the classroom, by which one would lecture in person but simultaneously with a camera and microphone to engage with those learning remotely. I was anxious of the burden of learning to use the technology, but the inhibition before the event turned soon to enthusiasm on my part. 

    Young people’s prospects here are good; this is one of the best places in the Middle East to study alongside Beirut and Cairo. The majority of students will end up in business, media, engineering and perhaps architecture or design. There is absolutely no sense of rebellion in Dubai. 

    That said, the students seem to have lost some of their gusto. When I see the odd stray young person on campus, he or she invariably seems to me to look lonely. It’s much easier for an academic like myself – a person who revels in a week spent on the couch reading or thinking, writing or teaching – to deal with these circumstances than for other kinds of people. It’s also much easier for a man nearing forty, too, than for someone half my age to accept the reality of the pandemic.  

    I dare not let my wife catch on, but being homebound suits me like pie and goes down like sugar.  Bookworms or not, it’s the young I feel for. Of course, they’re getting on with their lives, and many are learning by other means. But if things are concerning in Dubai, if I look across at my native Lebanon, I am forced to imagine what absolute lockdown would be like. That country is suffering from its infrastructural weaknesses, in a country which was weakened already by internal strife and corruption.  

    I remain hopeful. Perhaps when things improve, and our old outdoorsy life recommences, we will have – in a manner of speaking – gone back to the future. It might even be that this hiatus will bring forth new fruits.  To paraphrase that great fabulist Lawrence Durrell: in the midst of winter we can feel the inventions of spring. 

    Omar Sabbagh is an Associate Professor at American University in Dubai

  • Opinion: Gavin Williamson’s proposed school phone ban misses the point

    Opinion: Gavin Williamson’s proposed school phone ban misses the point

    Patrick Crowder

    Gavin Williamson has been criticised over his suggestion that mobile phones should be banned in schools, but are mobiles even the problem in the first place?

    The Education Secretary penned a comment for the Telegraph last week launching his Behaviour Hubs programme and calling for “firm and fair” discipline in schools. He cites a lack of discipline and focus during the lockdown and seems to fear that it will carry on through students’ return to the classroom. 

    Despite the fact that mobile phones are already banned in most schools across the country, Williamson laid the blame for behavioural issues on their use during school hours.

    Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told the Times that Williamson had “not done his homework” on pupils’ behaviour following lockdown. He stated that students are showing a “sense of calm and cooperation that is deeply impressive,” and that “behaviour has never been better.”

    For better or worse, mobile phones are a part of our daily lives. We are a society on call – to friends, relatives, neighbours, spouses and – if clear boundaries are not set – to jobs that were once nine to five. Sheltering children from this reality may be the kind thing to do, but it will not prepare them for the real world.

    The issue with phones and productivity is that the option for entertainment and socialisation is ever-present. The key is learning self-control. If the CEO of a company had to place their phone in a time-locked safe to get any work done, they would be seen at best as eccentric, and at worst as an internet addict.

    Williamson states that phones in school act not only as a distraction, but as a “breeding ground for cyberbullying” and “anonymous Instagram accounts where students are ranked on appearance”. 

    Cyberbullying is an issue which must be taken seriously. According to the Office for National Statistics, almost one in five students have experienced online bullying in the form of name calling, exclusion from social activities, harmful rumours, or other bad behaviour in the past year. 

    According to that same survey, only 19% of online bullying took place exclusively at school. 28% occurred exclusively while the students were out of school, and 53% of students reported that it took place both at home and in school. Therefore, Williamson’s phone ban would be ineffective in stopping the sorts of social media accounts he referenced.

    Leaving mobile phones aside for a moment, it would be wise to examine the reasons behind Williamson’s perceived lack of student discipline during lockdown. It seems far more likely that poor behaviour stems from the stresses of the global pandemic, online learning which leaves students unengaged and unmotivated, and the lack of socialisation with other students their own age to serve as a pressure valve for these stressors.

    According to Geoff Barton, students are “relaxed and pleased to be back at school”. If this is true, it serves as proof of the toll online learning must have taken on our young people. Coming down hard on students now with new, more militant restrictions and disciplinary styles will only remind them of the reasons they shouldn’t be happy to return.

    If the pandemic has shown children that in-person school is not so bad, then let’s take that as a win and try not to ruin it.

    Photo credit: John Tuesday on Unsplash

  • The government needs to act on unpaid work experience

    The government needs to act on unpaid work experience

    Daphne Phillips

    There is a common gripe for many young people attempting to find their place in the labour market via a graduate scheme or entry-level role. The moan is that “entry-level” schemes, placements, even internships often require at least two years of prior experience. 

    Some ambitious aspirants may know what they want to do from the age of ten, and never waver, collecting work experience and internships as they go. However, for many others the decision comes as a trial and error process in their teenage years and early twenties. Is one more worthy of a start in a career because they chose it earlier? Is talent outweighed by experience?

    Often asking for too much industry-specific experience can serve to keep elite circles tight – to the detriment of those sectors where the practice is most rife. In many cases when a candidate has required the requisite experience, it can be because the right strings have been pulled earlier in life. These opportunities are often unpaid – and we all know that only the progeny of the well-off can afford to burnish their CVs in this way.

    Media and creative industries still often offer these unpaid opportunities despite repeated calls for this practice to end from social mobility tsars and charities. 

    It’s not just a question of connections but the practicalities. Many of these sought-after placements require living in London where rent and the cost of living is significantly higher than the rest of the country. And there’s also the question of when you’re going to find time to do holiday work. The less affluent tend to use the summer to engage in paid work. That often makes them mature candidates, with a knowledge of hard graft and the realities of the workplace – but it doesn’t always look that way on their CVs. 

    Increasingly, we inhabit a world of informal networks which many talented people are excluded from. But how do you prevent this from happening?

    Essentially, the widespread requirement for experience has brought internships into the formal labour market. As the Chair of the Education Select Committee Robert Halfon MP has argued, the normalisation of apprenticeships may be one part of the solution. We need to forge a society where education is better tethered to employability.

    But it wouldn’t remove another structural problem. A 2018 report by the Sutton Trust found that a staggering 70 per cent of internships are unpaid. To legislate against that would not in itself prevent the old boys’ network from dominating some industries, but it would at least mean that many talented people could afford to improve their CVs and not lose out unfairly. 

    Pleasingly, there is now a private member’s bill awaiting its second reading in the House of Commons, sponsored by Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham. This seeks to ban unpaid work experience lasting longer than four weeks, and is already the subject of lively debate. Boris Johnson has indicated that he backs the broad idea. We shall report on the ins and outs of the legislation in the coming weeks and months, but given the inequities of the current position, there can be little doubt that now is the time for the government to seize the momentum on this. 

    Photo Credit: Campaign Creators on Unsplash

  • Margaret Greenwood: ‘damning’ that we have seven million adults with poor literacy skills

    Margaret Greenwood: ‘damning’ that we have seven million adults with poor literacy skills

    The former shadow schools minister recalls life as a teacher and thinks there might be answers for the present in the past 

    Whenever you ask the government about exams they say it’s the best form of assessment, but that’s a meaningless comment which stands up to no scrutiny. When I started teaching secondary school, GCSE was 100 per cent course work. The exam board would ask us to put forward ten pieces of work for each student; two of those pieces had to be done in controlled conditions, like an exam. Pupils knew that every piece of work at the start of the year mattered. It meant pupils took up-front responsibility for their own learning. 

    When they brought that arrangement to an end it was like attending a wake at my school: we were mourning the passing of this as we’d seen such an increase in quality. If you have an exam at the end of the year, you’re talking about memorising things rather than developing skills. I found the old way very constructive and flexible. If you have a situation where a pupil has missed a month of school or been ill, or something terrible has happened in the family, you could say, “Let’s get on with the next thing.” 

    I’d like to move to a system where we have greater development of skills and research. In the age of the search engine, to have assessment processes in demonstrating memory seems flawed to me.  

    I once taught in an adult centre reading to adults who struggled with reading. That was quite a profound experience because you were in close contact with people who throughout life had experienced that profound deprivation of not having sufficient literacy skills to make their way in the world. Today we have around seven million adults with poor literacy skills: that’s damning in a country like ours. 

    That’s why in 2020, as shadow schools minister, I argued against the Reception Baseline Assessment. There was evidence it was causing children distress, and taking teachers away from settling children into school-based routines and developing relationships with pupils. We’ve got a similar issue with SATs. I spoke to a mother who told me when her daughter was in Year 6, she used to cry on her way into school as she wasn’t very good at maths. That’s why a broad-based curriculum is important. These decisions taken early in children’s lives affect employment outcomes further down the line.  

    If you’ve ever been to adult education centres, you learn the hunger people have for learning when they’ve missed out on it. One class I once taught was called ‘Women Back to Work’. These were women who wanted to get back into the workplace, and needed a GCSE in English to do that. One knock-on effect was the impact on their children: they would bring them into the classes with them, and proudly stand in front of the class and give a talk while their child was there, looking up so proudly at what their mum was doing. 

    When you think of women who have come out of work to look after children and then become carers, they can often lose their confidence. Adult learning is a fantastic way to open up ideas. I worry about the long-term economic impact of children who grow up in poverty. They don’t earn much, not as many go to university and they’re less likely to have good health later in life. This government has no appreciation of the scale of the problem. It was dragged kicking and screaming on school meals by Marcus Rashford, a fact which spoke volumes.  

    Part of the problem is that the status of teaching is still low in relation to what it should be. At a local level, people are still immensely grateful to their local teacher so the relation between pay and status has to come from government. When I look at what primary teachers do, their skill levels are absolutely phenomenal.  

    The Labour Party is in a process of development of policy, and have to include our membership in that. Keir’s been leader for a year or so, and because of Covid too there hasn’t been the opportunity for meetings or conference. I think it’s too early to say, but we need to look to the past for inspiration.  

    In the 1970s, we had a big pay rise and there was buoyancy because we as teachers felt valued. This was before the national curriculum and we’d teach as we saw fit, with no testing regime and more creative time. I remember we used to put on school plays and when they bought in the national curriculum it killed it dead. I think that’s tragic. We need to look at that. Exams are not the answer.  

    Margaret Greenwood is the Member of Parliament for Wirral West 

    Photo credit: David Woolfall under Creative Commons License 3.0

  • Will the work-from-home revolution adversely affect working mothers?

    Will the work-from-home revolution adversely affect working mothers?

    Alice Wright

    With many firms offering new flexi-working arrangements as restrictions begin to lift across the UK, a study conducted by the World Economic Forum has raised questions about the impact working from home (WFH) may have on career progression, particularly for women.

    The study asked lots of different questions about attitudes and outcomes of working from home, collecting data from 5,000 randomly selected UK workers. When asked how much time the employees would like to spend working from home there was a large variety in answers. The report raised the concern that those who “WFH may end up suffering long-run in terms of promotions, which would be a major issue for diversity if certain demographics, like women with young kids, opt to WFH more and miss out on promotions.”   

    Indeed BBC research suggested that people with disabilities, people with children and women make up the largest number that prefer the prospect of more time working at home. Therefore there could develop a situation where young, ambitious single men who opt to work in the office get ahead of their female peers who decide to work from home.  

    The BBC report goes on to say that “research shows that home workers – however productive – suffer from a lack of face time with colleagues and managers, which negatively impacts promotions, and ultimately may stall careers.”

    It has been well-documented this year that the Covid-19 pandemic has had an adverse effect on women: the burden of domestic chores and childcare has fallen disproportionately on women. Before the pandemic women were doing three times the amount of unpaid domestic and care work than men, but now UN Women Deputy Executive Director Anita Bhatia says this has “doubled.”  

    For many, home working in a blended manner is here to stay and workers are increasingly being offered choice. But if those that go into the office are more likely to gain promotions by forming stronger bonds with their superiors, and having their work continuously acknowledged and women remain working from home to fulfil domestic needs, then the gender gap at work looks set to regress.  

    The issue of a disparity in promotions between in-office workers and WFH workers existed well before the so-called “work from home revolution” brought about by the pandemic. In a 2014 study conducted in China, researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that while people working from home were around 13% more productive, they weren’t rewarded with promotions at nearly the same rate as their colleagues working in the office. The BBC report also stated that remote workers who aren’t being promoted can also end up with a heavier workload.

    While more choice for employees on where they work can be considered a positive, before hailing it as ‘revolutionary’ the potential detriments to diversity in leadership must be considered to ensure hard-fought gains on women’s economic and social independence are not lost.    

  • Thwarted plans: why the new UCAS report must be acted on by schools

    Thwarted plans: why the new UCAS report must be acted on by schools

    Alice Wright

    The University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) has released a report stating that one in five students are ill-prepared for university because they are not able to take the correct subjects at school that would allow them to study a degree that interests them.  

    The report went on to say that two in five students stated they would have made “better choices” if they had been provided with better information. It’s clear that young adults are being asked to make decisions that will affect their working future increasingly early on in life. Subject choices as early as GCSE are becoming factors in what degrees are open to them, and then in what careers they may pursue. 

    In other words, pupils are being failed. To create opportunities and leave paths open, children and young adults must be given the correct information. Such information must also be given in creative and stimulating ways to ensure it sinks in. It is no good handing out dry, colourless leaflets with lists of required subjects under a list of alphabetised career paths. People bring professions to life, and schools should make use of engaging speakers at the top of their industries who are willing to talk about what their working life has been like and how others might follow them.  

    This year, the government has decided to implement the “Enterprise Adviser Network”, and idea facilitated by the Careers and Enterprise Company. The idea – a laudable one – is to connect youngsters with leaders in different sectors and to provide careers advice. But only another such report in following years will tell if it is enough.   

    Making the right educational decisions as a young adult is also important in the backdrop of a highly commodified higher and further education system. Universities and colleges are financially incentivised to recruit as many students as possible, and fill gaps in courses whose capacity has not been reached. According to the Social Market Foundation, this has led to a so-called “turf-war” between the two sectors. This self-interest means students should not rely on those institutions for impartial advice. They must get it earlier from schools services – but above all, make their own informed decisions.  

    Knowledge can spark inspiration and passion that will determine a young adult’s future. Schools must look at UCAS’ findings and get creative to ensure their pupils are armed with the best information to take them forward into higher or further education, and eventually into the working world.