A MAJOR review into education and skills levels in the North has been launched at Drax Power Station by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.

The review team will investigate why educational attainment among 16-year-olds is so low across the region and how the demand from employers for technical and higher level skills can better be served. Chaired by Manchester Airport’s managing director Collette Roche, the NPP Education and Skills Board also includes economist and former Treasury minister, Lord Jim O’Neill, and Sir Michael Wilshaw, a former chief inspector of schools and head of Ofsted.

The Board will undertake a consultation exercise across the region, conduct independent research and hold Dragon’s Den-style sessions to gather innovative ideas from a range of groups. It will then publish its findings at the start of 2018.

Across the North, 56 per cent of pupils attain five or more A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths, compared with 61 per cent in London.

In terms of working age skills gaps for 16 to 64-year-olds, the North has a deficit across the skills spectrum, with the biggest gaps being at higher skill levels – up to a 5.5 per cent gap compared to the rest of the UK. In addition, the proportion of people across the North who leave school with no qualifications is one per cent higher than the UK average.

It is challenges such as these that the Education and Skills Board will address. The Board includes a range of experts from across the region, including primary and secondary school heads, further education college leaders, educational charities and major employers.

The Education and Skills Board was launched at Drax Power Station near Selby, where the NPP Board meeting was held. Drax is an NPP Board member and the UK’s largest single site renewable electricity generator having upgraded half of the power station to sustainable biomass from coal.

NPP chairman George Osborne toured the site and met Alice Gill, a former Drax apprentice who is now a qualified craftswoman.