In recent years Professor Lee Elliot Major has mixed with senior dignitaries, politicians and business leaders. He’s been to 10 Downing Street and, in 2019, to Buckingham Palace when he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his work on social mobility.

It wasn’t always like this though. As a troubled teenager Lee left school and then left home, staying with a friend’s family for a while before being encouraged back into education and building a different future for himself. Lee says: “When we look at individual success we are actually looking at the product of collective endeavour. I’m the first person in my family to go to university but I wouldn’t have made it without the emotional and financial support of other people.

“My experiences have made me, not just passionate about the power of education, but in the need to level the playing field to ensure access for everyone. The reality is, it is much harder nowadays for young people in the position I was in to turn things around, and this is something I want to change.”

Based at the University of Exeter, Lee is the first Professor of Social Mobility in the country. He focuses on research that has direct impact on policy and practice, working closely with schools, universities, employers and policy makers. Most recently he has been focused on the impact of the COVID pandemic on educational inequalities.

He says: “Research shows that social mobility has declined in this country in recent years, so the chances of doing well in life have dropped for the current generation. Every generation since World War II has done better than the previous one, so if you measure for example, average earnings for each generation in real terms, they did better than their parents’ generation. Apart from one, and that’s the generation growing up now. On average the earnings of young people today are less than their parents were a generation before.

“There was this golden age of social mobility immediately after the war and that was because the economy and society were expanding and new jobs were emerging, whereas since the big recession in 2008, we’ve been in an era of declining opportunity. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t get on in life, but it does means that, for example, buying a house as a young person is more difficult.

“Another key finding we’ve seen is the link between inequality and lack of social mobility – immobility – where the most unequal nations are also the least mobile. There are a number of reasons for this link. Let’s take education for example. Going to university and school is important and it can be transformative (it certainly was for me) but what we find is, those families who do have the resources to invest in their children are doing so more than ever. Private tutoring outside school has boomed over the last two decades and in places like London around 40% of 11 to 16 year olds now have some form of private tutoring outside schools. But of course if you’re from a family who doesn’t have those resources then you’re going to be left behind.

“So even though schools and universities are doing a lot to try and counter the inequalities outside they’re up against what I call the ‘education arms race’, and the research I’ve been involved in during the pandemic has shown that inequalities in education have been exacerbated further by the crisis. What we found was that students from private schools were twice as likely to have benefited from a full school day compared to their state school counterparts and this makes a huge difference to a child’s education, especially over a sustained period.”

So what can be done to help level the playing field? In 2020 Lee co-authored a paper proposing national tutoring in the wake of school closures but says funding decisions were ultimately a missed opportunity to specifically help poorer children.

Lee says: “In the future, any attempts to improve education prospects in the wake of the pandemic will need to be highly targeted to benefit the most disadvantaged pupils. For example by prioritising schools with high proportions of children on free school meals or supporting only pupils on free school meals in all schools.

“I’m helping the University with its own access efforts in terms of recruiting students from all backgrounds and I think we’re becoming a far more welcoming institution in terms of attracting young people from all backgrounds. Being inclusive and ensuring fair access to education is a key part of Exeter’s strategy both now and in the future.

“We’ve already seen success from programmes such as Exeter Scholars which provides pathways for students from diverse backgrounds to come and experience Exeter, and learn what life is like at university. This can be crucial as these young people are often the first in their family to attend university and have no one to talk to. Then once they complete the programme there are also opportunities for scholarships to help them support their studies.

“I think there is a chance now in this post-pandemic era to really address some of these issues. I really believe we’re at a moment in history where if we group together and we think radically we can change some of these profound inequalities that have been affecting society for so long.”