Gavin Williamson

The education recovery commissioner has resigned in a row over the government’s £1.4 billion catch-up fund on what school leaders deemed a “deeply disappointing” and “truly awful day”. Sir Kevan Collins has quit after just four months in the role as catch-up tsar as he warned the government’s package “falls far short of what is […]

The Department for Education has still not fulfilled its pledge to provide 1.3 million laptops and tablets to disadvantaged pupils, figures have suggested. A school leaders’ union has criticised the government’s “painfully slow” progress one month after all pupils in England returned to the classroom. Data from the Department for Education (DfE) shows 1,295,752 laptops […]

Schools, colleges and universities can now apply for funding to allow students to study and work abroad as part of the post-Brexit replacement of the Erasmus exchange programme. The £110 million Turing scheme, which will fund global exchanges for about 35,000 UK students from September, will target disadvantaged students and those from under-represented areas. But […]

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has not ruled out lengthening school days or shortening summer breaks to help pupils in England catch up from coronavirus disruption. Ministers have announced an extra £400 million of funding and asked secondaries to deliver some summer teaching to counteract the months of classroom closures. With all pupils in England set […]

Former education secretary DAVID BLUNKETT says the government has failed to appreciate the scale of the damage the pandemic is inflicting on children’s prospects. The British, or more accurately the English, handling of the Covid pandemic has thrown up two markedly different levels of success and competence. I’m not talking here about the fiascos relating […]

Labour’s shadow education minister has called on Tory peer James Wharton to resign his party’s whip after being appointed chair of the universities watchdog. Kate Green said Wharton’s appointment to the Office for Students (OfS) was the latest in a “growing catalogue of cronyism” committed by the government. The Tory peer was confirmed as chair on Tuesday afternoon, despite the Commons […]

Much maligned and under attack from ministers – but more important than ever. Media studies doesn’t deserve the ‘Mickey Mouse’ tag, argues Martin McQuillan. In last week’s New European Ian Dunt gave us 15 bold steps to fix Britain. Top of his list was making media studies mandatory in schools. He suggested that equipping school children to approach […]

Boris Johnson has not lost faith in education secretary Gavin Williamson to do his job, despite a minister being sent in his place to answer an urgent question, his spokesperson has claimed. Schools minister Nick Gibb will reply for the government later in response to an urgent question on its plan for the reopening of […]

Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan has called on Gavin Williamson to resign as education secretary for being a “catastrophe”. The interviewed started with co-presenter Susanna Reid claiming that he had “failed” many children. She told him: “I remember we talked to each other early on in the pandemic when you cancelled two sets of […]

Labour’s shadow education secretary Kate Green has called for Gavin Williamson to resign over the latest free school meals scandal, saying he “plainly isn’t up to the job”. Green said the public had “run out of patience” with the education secretary. The opposition politician says she will force a vote in the Commons next week […]

A former Ofsted chair has called for education secretary Gavin Williamson’s resignation, amid the continuing lack of certainty over what will replace cancelled GCSEs and A-Levels. In a letter to exams regulator Ofqual yesterday, Williamson said he would like “to explore the possibility of providing externally set tasks or papers, in order that teachers can […]

An overwhelming majority of England’s teachers believe education secretary Gavin Williamson should resign, snap polling has found. In response to a question posed by app Teacher Tapp, carried out on behalf of ITV News, 92% of almost 6,000 respondents said they think Williamson should quit. The results come as the government faces mounting criticism of its handling of […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that Eton “work very well” without girls, dismissing calls by the education secretary to make the school mixed-sex. Rees-Mogg, a former Etonian, spoke out after Gavin Williamson suggested it would be a “great step forward” if the elite schooling institute altered its admissions policy to include female students. Boris Johnson, David […]

Gavin Williamson has become the centre of an ongoing joke after he claimed Britain swiftly approved a Covid-19 vaccine because it was a “much better country” than others. The education secretary told LBC radio that Britain had “much better” medical regulators than France, Belgium, and the US, who helped rapidly approve a coronavirus vaccine. Commenting UK regulators approving […]

The government has been ridiculed after releasing an anti-bullying video in the same week one of its senior ministers faces disciplinary actions over allegations of bullying staff. The Department for Education is at the centre of a Twitter storm following the release of a video condemning bullying in UK schools. The 80-second clip posted on […]