The Fair Education Alliance
The Fair Education Alliance is not prepared to accept the status quo and is committed to leading the fight against educational inequality.
We are a coalition for change in education comprising of the UK’s leading organisations. Our aim is to work towards ending the persistent achievement gap between young people from our poorest communities and their wealthier peers. Committed to this common goal, the Alliance will both work collectively to find solutions to address educational inequality, as well as annually monitor the progress made to narrow the gap.
A large number of organisations care deeply about this problem but the reasons for this educational inequality are not simple and lie in an intricate web of social issues. Addressing such complex problems will take more than one institution, one organisation, or even one government. We believe that by combining the passion, talent and ideas of educationalists, charities and business we can offer a strong collective voice that creates a lasting impact on young people’s lives.
Each Alliance member has signed up to work towards achieving the Fair Education Impact Goals. These encompass five transformational changes which, if achieved in the next ten years, will substantially reduce educational inequality by ensuring more children get a fair chance in education, regardless of their background. The Fair Education Impact Goals follow the educational journey of a child from primary school through to Further Education and employment, and Higher Education. They are:
- Narrow the gap in literacy and numeracy at primary school
- Narrow the gap in GCSE attainment at secondary school
- Ensure young people develop key strengths, including character, emotional wellbeing and mental health, to support high aspirations
- Narrow the gap in the proportion of young people in education, employment or training one year after compulsory education
- Narrow the gap in university graduation, including from the 25 per cent most selective universities.
The Alliance will use the Impact Goals to call for where action is needed – such as numeracy, literacy and access to Higher Education – and develop a programme of far-reaching activity on a long term educational strategy. This will include securing policy change and member-led initiatives.
This is an exceptional opportunity to raise the public profile of educational inequality and inspire more people to join us in ending it for good.
