"I want to see children back at school next month, and I expect the prime minister to deliver on that commitment. However, the commitment is now at serious risk after a week of chaos, confusion and incompetence from the government," the opposition leader told the Sunday newspaper.
According to Starmer, the mess that was created after education authorities used a grading algorithm that led to thousands of students getting wrong results has undermined public trust in the Conservative government.
"Restoring public confidence and getting a grip on the Department for Education must be Downing Street’s number-one priority this week. Failure to do so will leave the government’s promise of ‘levelling up’ in tatters," he stressed.
The government has declared the reopening of schools in September after almost six months without in-person classes because of the COVID-19 pandemic a national priority, despite the fact that the country has been recording an average of 1,000 coronavirus cases per day over the past few weeks.
