Covid legacy

Playbook discovers how the pandemic affected students and revisits Liz Truss’s thoughts about universities

Remember the pandemic? In the roller-coaster of political messaging and economic graphs of the past few days, it is easy to forget that this time last year we were still barely out of webinars and facemasks; a quarter of university students in England were still receiving no in-person teaching; and Omicron restrictions were yet to come.

But if memories about all this have been short, the effects are not. A report published yesterday on the Covid-19 generation showed that nearly two-thirds of those who had made education plans had changed them at least in part because of Covid. Nearly as many had changed career plans, with girls, pupils from disadvantaged family backgrounds and state school pupils most likely to report making changes.