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Britain's new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is more "Evertonian" than "Etonian", notes Lee Elliot Major: with his working class roots and political identity rooted in North West England, he marks a radical break with the...Read more...
Lee Elliot Major
22 July 2026
We like to believe that modern workplaces are meritocratic. The best ideas rise to the top. Hard work pays off. The most capable people succeed. But our research reveals a more complicated reality, write Lee Elliot Major...Read more...
Lee Elliot Major and Anne-Marie Sim
9 June 2026
Lee Elliot Major argues for a national university volunteering service which could involve undergraduates tutoring pupils and spread to other forms of community action....Read more...
28 May 2026
Soaring rents, long waiting lists, and mounting political anger are forcing governments across Europe to address gaps in social housing provision. This column examines whether new homes can also transform childrena??s fu...Read more...
Christos Genakos, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Elias Papaioannou
17 April 2026
What does a A#180,000 job ad for a private tutor *for a baby* reveal about the global education arms race? It's tempting to put it down to the eccentric indulgence of a tiny global elite. But it in fact points to an expl...Read more...
29 October 2025
The 16-year-olds who took their GCSEs this summer started secondary school in the middle of the pandemic. The results of these high-stakes exams will highlight the uneven toll that Covid-19 lockdowns took on learning, as...Read more...
Aadya Bahl
18 August 2025
Right-to-Buy gave tenants of local authority owned 'council' houses the chance to own their home. The policy, which began in 1980, has been criticised for increasing inequality in the housing market, but Richard Disney a...Read more...
Richard Disney and Matteo Sandi
30 July 2025
This submission argues for a new model of social mobility that recognises and values all forms of talent - academic, vocational, and creative - and helps people to lead decent lives, wherever they live, whatever their ba...Read more...
Aadya Bahl, Lee Elliot Major and Stephen Machin
23 May 2025
To ensure inclusivity in the post-16 education system, the government must guarantee a clear progression route for the "other 50 per cent" of young people who are not on the academic track. The government should introduc...Read more...
Aadya Bahl, Richard Layard and Sandra McNally
There are not enough graduates for sectors in which the UK has a comparative advantage and there are too few people educated to sub-degree level compared to other countries....Read more...
Sandra McNally, Guglielmo Ventura and Gill Wyness
1 July 2024
Schools in England, and the UK as a whole, need greater investment. Failure to do so puts economic growth in jeopardy as well as worsening social mobility....Read more...
Lee Elliot Major, Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally and Shqiponja Telhaj
The impact of the pandemic on education means that pupils in England are on course for lower GCSE grades well into the 2030s. Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles, Esme Lillywhite and Stephen Machin say that the school system ...Read more...
Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles, Esme Lillywhite and Stephen Machin
20 June 2024
We present for the first time a model of children's evolving socio-emotional and cognitive skills to assess how the educational and lifetime prospects of children of different ages, genders and socio-economic backgrounds...Read more...
24 April 2024
The background of our Prime Ministers hugely influences the judgements they make. Yet our leaders are drawn from an astonishingly narrow slice of society: every PM who attended an English university since WW2 went to Oxf...Read more...
16 April 2024
The question of the extent to which individuals' incomes are related to those of their parents has seen renewed interest as rising income inequality raises concerns about equality of opportunity. Gustave Kenedi and Louis...Read more...
Gustave Kenedi and Louis Sirugue
12 April 2024
Since the pandemic, a new divide has emerged in higher education between commuter students, on the one hand, and on-campus students, on the other. Reporting on the findings of a new student money and wellbeing survey, Le...Read more...
9 April 2024
Online tutoring programmes have emerged as an effective strategy for narrowing the educational gaps that were exacerbated by the pandemic. Claudia Hupkau, Lucas Gortazar and Antonio Roldan-Mones outline how an eight-week...Read more...
Lucas Gortazar, Claudia Hupkau and Antonio Roldan
19 March 2024
Commuter students face financial struggle and a growing sense of isolation from campus. Lee Elliot Major introduces the findings of a new student money and wellbeing survey....Read more...
27 February 2024
The Insights series is an introduction to the work of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Each Insight highlights the contribution of CEP researchers to both academic understanding and policymaking in one area of ...Read more...
6 February 2024
Lee Elliot Major explains why developing an equity approach in higher education is the only way we will ever level the learning playing field - and lays out three simple steps we can take to achieve this....Read more...
18 January 2024
Lee Elliot Major explains why the language we use in education is important to challenge the divides that scar the education system....Read more...
14 November 2023
There are severe long-term consequences for young people in the UK who spend time in youth custody, the majority of whom are boys. Those with very low grades, in special education facilities and with additional education...Read more...
Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
31 October 2023
How much of an individual's success depends on their own hard work and how much on what their parents do for a living? A country where children from poor families are likely to be poor as adults and elite positions in so...Read more...
Jo Blanden
26 July 2023
Lee Elliot Major discusses how teacher-parent partnerships can help make the UK's childcare system more effective and provides three policy recommendations the government can implement....Read more...
25 July 2023
Against a backdrop of poor productivity growth, severe skill shortages and increasing educational inequalities in the UK since the pandemic, investment in education and skills is essential. It requires policies that span...Read more...
Lindsey Macmillan and Gill Wyness
15 June 2023
