Justine Greening warns social mobility is ‘far more complex’ than grammar schools
Justine Greening has said that improving social mobility is “far more complex” than deciding whether a school is selective.
The comments from the former Education Secretary, who resigned from her position in the cabinet in January 2018, came after her successor, Damian Hinds, said he wanted to see existing grammar schools expand.
Ms Greening was speaking to Tes as she prepared to launch a new social mobility pledge, which will commit companies to work with schools to provide coaching and mentoring for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Improving social mobility was a key reason given by the Prime Minister, Theresa May, for her now-aborted plans to create new selective schools.
However, when asked about the role of grammar schools in improving social mobility, Ms Greening said: “I think perhaps the most powerful thing the government can do is to get on with putting in place the social mobility strategy that I launched immediately before Christmas, which contains a range of steps that need to be taken by the [Department for Education] to make sure schools’ standards rise across the country, but especially in the parts of the country that have lagged behind.”
Read the full article in the Tes.