Michelle Donelan takes over from Nadhim Zahaoui as education minister after just two years as minister, rewarded for her loyalty and her embrace of the culture wars and university clampdowns that were a hallmark of Boris Johnson’s administration.
Moving from his current role as higher and further education minister, Donelan will have to quickly take responsibility for the mess of unfinished business left by Zahawi in his short 10-month tenure, most notably the schools bill, which last week was forced through to eviscerate the new chancellor after opposition from former ministers and supporters in the Lords.
But Donnellan has impressed those who work with her with her no-nonsense attitude and as someone who — unlike Zahawi or Johnson — isn’t concerned with the trappings of the office or finding friendships.
As university minister, she seemed more often to advise young people against going to university, repeatedly claiming that young people had been “tricked” into taking on debt and decades of paying for degrees that might not be worth it.
Under her watch, England’s student loan system has been reformed so that the less well-off pay more for longer, and plans are being made to limit loans to unqualified applicants or for courses deemed to be of low quality.
Donelan has also led a political attack on the number of first-class degrees universities award and criticizes those with high drop-out rates. Her belief in taking direct action saw her telephone vice-chancellors directly with complaints or requests. Most recently, Russell Group vice-chancellors were surprised to have Donnellan call them urging them to make more offers to students this year.
Last week, Donnellan further angered university leaders when he sent them letters making what they considered unjustified demands. The vice-chancellors responded, saying “an important line has been crossed” with Donnellan’s letter. But the public battle with the vice-chancellors does no harm in the eyes of the current cabinet.
Donnellan herself went to public school in Cheshire and studied history and politics at the University of York, but her first public foray into politics involved a speech at a Conservative Party conference aged 15 – a year younger than the precocious William Hague.
In her career, she worked in marketing for World Wrestling Entertainment in the US. Returning to the UK, she eventually contested and won the seat of Chippenham in Wiltshire in 2015, making it a safe seat in 2017 and 2019.
As education minister, Donnellan will have to oversee the higher education free speech bill making its way through parliament, as well as the schools bill left in the dust by Zahawi after he removed clauses that sought to give the DfE more power over the sprawling and lightly regulated academy sector in England. And Donelan will soon have to deal with teacher pay raises and potential strikes in the fall if her proposal proves inadequate.
Zahawi dropped another time bomb: GCSE and A-level results due in August, which will see top grades collapse after two years of pandemic-induced inflation causing unhappiness and bad headlines. But Johnson and his administration may not last – and whoever is the education secretary in August when the results are released will be anyone’s guess.
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