It seems Avnee Morjaria鈥檚 modus operandi is cutting to the chase. She鈥檚 responsible for all public service policy at the , a think tank known to be influential in Labour policy making.聽 It鈥檚 a stressful job, she says, but perhaps not as stressful as the one Rachel Reeves鈥 has (we meet on the day of the chancellor鈥檚 spring funding statement). The venue is a quiet cafe along Millbank, a pleasant suntrap while the metaphorical clouds engulf Westminster less than a mile away. 鈥淚 think the education sector is probably in the worst place that it has been since, well, for decades, in terms of the amount of resources that it鈥檚 got committed,鈥 Morjaria says. 鈥淲e shouldn鈥檛 be [having to] find cuts in the schools system. And if you want to find efficiency, you need to do reform. That takes time 鈥 and is not going to deliver you the savings you need for this kind of fiscal statement anyway.鈥 Time in teaching Morjaria was born in Leicester, to parents who had been expelled from Uganda under Idi Amin鈥檚 dictatorship. She attended what she described as a 鈥榗oasting鈥 school. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 the worst school, but it wasn鈥檛 the best school either.鈥 She said she was 鈥渁 bit too bright for my own good.” I was bored and easily switched off, that didn鈥檛 result in anything terrible. Some bunking off鈥 [but] I got the syllabuses and books and I taught myself and that worked for me in terms of the grades that I got, but I guess not the best way to deal with the school environment.鈥 Morjaria鈥檚 time in college studying A-levels sparked her interest in teaching. Young Avnee 鈥淭he staff were pretty absent,鈥 she says. 鈥淧eople off, on long-term sick leave, and continuous supply teaching across a couple of different subjects. 鈥淲hen I looked across at more affluent members of my family and the schooling they were getting and paying for, I understood how transformational good education can be. 鈥淚 really wanted to, without sounding cheesy, make a difference.鈥 Morjaria began her career teaching maths after studying the subject at the University of Warwick. It was a utilitarian choice 鈥 she tells me she would have loved to have read politics. 鈥淎s a teenager I didn鈥檛 really understand what my options were and where they would take me,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 enjoyed maths, I had a good maths teacher, and she was the one who was consistently there.鈥 ‘I absolutely loved pastoral care’ Morjaria enjoyed teaching 鈥渁nd the banter with the teenagers鈥, but realised the subject she picked to teach was 鈥渁bsolutely wrong. I hated the subject content, and while I loved the job, I hated that element of it.鈥 She worked at Stoke Park and Lyng Hall schools in Coventry, teaching largely white working class children, many deprived and some who lived in caravans. Morjaria entered senior leadership at Lister school and Elmgreen school in south London. She was responsible for pastoral care, 鈥渨hich I absolutely loved鈥, and supporting young teachers. Lister school was rated 鈥榮atisfactory鈥 in 2012, but improved to 鈥榞ood鈥 with 鈥榦utstanding鈥 behaviour. 鈥淲e did a thing called Lister character to work together with the pupils to define what that meant and what it meant to be a good pupil,鈥 she says. What helped was consistent systems and routines. 鈥淲hen it came to crunch time teachers were supported where things didn鈥檛 work out.鈥 The Ofsted call Morjaria also inspected while she was a senior leader, a job she describes as 鈥渙ne of the most difficult鈥 she has ever done. 鈥淭he way that inspections were conducted, it was super high stakes for a school,鈥 she says. 鈥淎 one-word judgment against a few categories could change the outlook for the local community. It could change the careers of the senior leaders there. 鈥淚t put a lot of pressure on the teachers, and that made the responsibility of the job itself super high stakes, because you wanted to make sure you got it right. 鈥淸But] you can鈥檛 really see what a school is like in two days. There鈥檚 a lot for you to understand and to take in and you can鈥檛 do that in two days. 鈥淭here were a lot of moments where I felt very sad leaving inspections. Did I ever feel: 鈥極h, that’s brilliant. I had a great day鈥? Not really. We should have thought about the overall impact of Covid 鈥淭here were the kind of isolated moments where there were schools that got a grade above what they expected, and they were pretty elated with that. Most of the time when schools are going to be good or outstanding, they already know.鈥 Despite this, does she welcome the reforms to Ofsted? 鈥淚’m not wholeheartedly sold on the new report cards, but on the other hand, I don’t know what the right answer is. I think that they’ve got an incredibly tough job in trying to find that answer and do the job that they need to do with the responsibilities that they’ve got to parents and students.鈥 Education strategy In 2016, Morjaria moved into the Department for Education to work as an assistant director on various strategy roles, including heading up the education recovery, remote education, and the curriculum strategies during the pandemic years. She was also part of the education recovery strategy which included the national tutoring programme (NTP), with a focus on supporting disadvantaged pupils. Around 2.5 million courses were delivered under the NTP. But now the scheme has ended, and funding has dried up, few leaders can afford to keep this support going. 鈥淭here was a time where Kevan Collins [the then Conservative government鈥檚 recovery commissioner] set out some proposals, and those were good ones,鈥 Morjaria says. 鈥淏ut they were never funded, and what we ended up with is the National Tutoring Programme, which really isn’t a sufficient response to what had happened. 鈥淪chools don鈥檛 have the money for tutoring 鈥 they鈥檝e barely got the money to hire teachers. 鈥淚f I was a senior leader now, would I prioritise tutoring in terms of my budget? No, I would prioritise things like attendance, employing teachers, and training teachers.鈥 But the biggest issue Morjaria identifies is mental health. She said the rise of related issues since the pandemic 鈥渨ere never dealt with or invested in鈥. 鈥淲e really should have thought about the overall impact of Covid, not just on kids鈥 attainment, but more broadly than that,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 just don’t think that the DfE, which was responsible for intervening and supporting children after that disruptive period, ever really got to grips with that.鈥 Policy life Before moving to the IPPR, Morjaria briefly spent time as a policy and strategy director at Oxford University Press. She enjoys the big-picture thinking that policy roles provide. The National Tutoring Programme isnt a sufficient response She says: 鈥淚 love thinking about the whole system, the policies within it, how to work together to make life better for people. 鈥淲hen I was in actual government civil service-style roles, I got to do that with ministers. Here at IPPR, I get to do that, but also I get to be a little bit political about it, or I get to think about the politics as well as the policy. I’ve been super lucky.鈥 Morjaria is focusing on social mobility. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got some pieces out in education on how empowering the workforce could be the next thing that makes the big transformational change, and how great leadership could be that too. 鈥淗ow do we change the narrative to one that talks about reducing inequality, a broader impact about making the difference on a larger scale to children鈥檚 lives?鈥 So, with her policy hat on, what鈥檚 her advice to education secretary Bridget Phillipson? 鈥淢y advice would be that children and young people are operating in a more complex environment than ever before, and schools will need to broaden their scope and offer to help children and young people to deal with this complexity,鈥 she suggests. 鈥淟abour shouldn鈥檛 be worried about this approach, both with the public and the sector, as everyone already knows that it is needed.鈥