Using data to inform education policy

Understand this issue

Public investment: what you need to know

explainer

Everything you wanted to know about UK public investment but were too afraid to ask – including analysis of Labour and Conservative plans.

25 April 2024

The £600 billion problem awaiting the next government

podcast

We speak to David Gauke and Giles Wilkes, two experts who have been at the heart of the spending review process.

25 April 2024

Sure Start achieved its aims, then we threw it away

comment

"We know that poor children grow up with poor life chances. We know how to ameliorate that. The choice is ours." Paul Johnson writes for the Times.

15 April 2024

Policy analysis

The short- and medium-term impacts of Sure Start on educational outcomes

report

We study the medium-run effect of Sure Start on academic outcomes, finding large benefits, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

9 April 2024

Sure Start greatly improved disadvantaged children’s GCSE results

press release

New research from IFS finds that Sure Start generated big improvements in the educational performance of children from low-income backgrounds.

9 April 2024

What you need to know about the new childcare entitlements

comment

This comment looks at who will be eligible for free childcare, whether funding is high enough and what impact the new entitlements might have.

28 March 2024

Academic research

6th World Bank/IFS/ODI Public Finance Conference | Driving Progress: Public Finance and Structural Transformation

conference 26 September 2024

We invite researchers from both academic and policy institutions to submit a paper or an extended abstract of two or more pages by April.

Willingness to pay for improved public education and public healthcare systems: the role of income mobility prospects

journal article

These findings are based on more than 19,000 observations from the third round of the Life in Transition Survey.

14 March 2024

Labour market inequality and the changing life cycle profile of male and female wages

working paper

We estimate the distribution of life cycle wages for cohorts of prime-age men and women in the US.

15 April 2024