WE will not build the longer-term recovery we need without ambition matched with greater investment in children, young people and our education system.

The last 18 months have had a major toll on children’s education. Millions of days of face-to-face education have already been lost, while children have also endured the national trauma of lockdowns, social isolation and the devastation of family and friends lost to coronavirus. 

While government ministers appear dewy-eyed when talking about the importance of catch-up tutoring, they have fallen well short of their promised investment in education recovery, leaving England lagging behind the commitments made by countries such as the United States and the Netherlands.

Against a background of profound social and economic inequalities, education recovery should be about more than simply making up lost ground, it must also contribute towards narrowing the gap, creating greater inclusion and building a fairer society and opportunity for all. 

With searing levels of child poverty, often among children living in households where at least one adult is in work, any programme of recovery must aim to be progressive — investing the resources to create opportunities where currently they least exist. 

And action must be predicated on a labour market policy that ends low pay and the scourge of zero-hours contracts. 

More than 50 years ago, the government was convinced that more — much more — needed to be done to address the impact of social and economic inequality. 

Education Priority Areas recognised that government had a responsibility to take the lead in rooting out inequality and ensuring that those who had the least in life received the most in terms of public investment in education. 

With a clear and unapologetic strategy to invest disproportionately in schools and a workforce dedicated to working with those children and young people who live in the most disadvantaged areas of the country, government made clear its commitment that the status quo simply would not do. That same commitment is needed again today.

While a bold agenda is needed, there is currently little evidence of it from the government. 

We need an agenda that is predicated on no return to past inequalities — instead, a new deal for children, young people and their teachers is needed, one that is based on ending the wider inequalities that still largely determine access to educational opportunities, educational outcomes and future life chances. 

Instead, we have seen a catalogue of government failure and incompetence, including a dogmatic refusal to recognise the risks of Covid transmission among young people, resulting in the education of the most disadvantaged pupils being the most disrupted. 

Teachers and head teachers have had to deal with broken promises, including government failures to deliver laptops during the lockdown, and now delays in the rollout of vital CO₂ monitors in schools. 

Young people endured the stress of two years of exam chaos putting their future life chances at risk.

This pandemic has reminded us that we cannot replace schools if we want the best for children. Children need teachers. 

So, if we are to secure the education recovery that our children deserve, there must be better support for and investment in our teachers — a recognition that we will not secure the best outcomes for all children while imposing pay freezes on teachers and at the same time failing to tackle the excessive workload that is driving many teachers out of the profession.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to move ahead with a teacher-led education recovery and renewal that will secure the ambition that we should have the best country for children and young people to grow up. 

The last 18 months have shown that teachers and schools are ready to do what it takes in order to secure the best outcomes for every pupil. It is time the government matched their ambition. 

Dr Patrick Roach is general secretary of the NASUWT — The Teachers’ Union.