London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Provocative education committee report will come as no surprise

Provocative education committee report will come as no surprise

Analysis: successive reports claim education has been a success story for ethnic minorities despite contradictory evidence

In one of the most provocative sections of the government’s landmark report on racial disparity this year, it argued that education has been the single most emphatic success story of the British ethnic minority experience.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) report stated that children from many ethnic communities largely do as well as or better than white pupils, with black Caribbean students the only group to perform less well.

It continued that over thepast half-century, new arrivals to Britain had “seized” on the “opportunities afforded” by the state school system and access to university. “The story for some ethnic groups has been one of remarkable social mobility, outperforming the national average and enabling them to attain success at the highest levels within a generation,” it found.

Now another new controversial report has warned that terms like white privilege are “divisive” and may have contributed towards systemic neglect of white disadvantaged communities, whose children persistently underperform compared with disadvantaged peers in other ethnic groups.

Repeatedly referring to the CRED report, the new publication states that the term white privilege is “used in the context of discrimination and racism and the challenges that people from ethnic minorities face”.

It raises concerns that the phrase may be alienating to disadvantaged white communities, and it may have contributed towards a systemic neglect of white people facing hardship who also need specific support.

“White privilege also fails to acknowledge the damage caused by other forms of discrimination, including antisemitism and the marginalisation of people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller backgrounds,” it states.

The content of this latest report will come as no surprise to some. Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, who is mentioned in the report, has previously warned that schools that teach pupils that “white privilege” is an uncontested fact are breaking the law.

Badenoch has said the government does not want white children being taught about “white privilege and their inherited racial guilt”.

“Any school which teaches these elements of political race theory as fact, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law,” she said during a commons debate on Black History Month.

The tone of both reports is in marked contrast to a Guardian investigation into race and UK education. Through interviews, freedom of information requests, testimonies and extensive research, the Guardian found

* UK schools recorded more than 60,000 racist incidents in the past five years with the government accused of failing to meet “basic safeguarding” measures by not legally obliging schools to report racism.

* More than 680 police officers are currently working in British schools, with most being assigned to campuses in areas of high deprivation. Their activities range from being a point of contact for teachers to more intensive interventions such as stop and search and surveillance of children suspected of being gang members, with critics saying it could have a disproportionate effect on children of colour.

* Exclusion rates for black Caribbean students are as much as six times higher than the rates for their white British peers in some local authorities with Roma children nine times more likely to be suspended in some areas with experts calling it an “incredible injustice” for schoolchildren from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Many critics of the CRED report described it as stark, contentious and a means of igniting a culture war.

At the time, Adriana Salazar Méndez, speaking on behalf of the Black, Asian & Minority Network at Durham University, described it as an insult to all people of colour. “Today we have woken up to another instance of gaslighting and injustice to which we cannot remain silent,” she said. Today’s report is likely to provoke similar responses.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×