The disadvantage gap among 16-to-19-year-old students widened further in 2021, with those on applied general qualifications faring worse than during the first year of Covid-19, an influential think tank has found.
The Education Policy Institute has today published a report assessing how Covid-19 disruption impacted disadvantaged groups of students in 2021.
The disadvantage gap for 16-to-19 students widened in both 2020 and 2021, and researchers say those taking applied general qualifications fell behind their peers studying A-levels.
The report said that for 2019/20 much of the teaching for courses was completed by March 2020, when the pandemic first hit the UK, with assessment for academic qualifications like A-levels more disrupted than applied or vocational qualifications.
