International Day of Education

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Thank you for that welcome, Ms Vaz. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous), who is also the chair of the APPG on global education, on securing this debate and on his long-standing interest in this matter. I also thank the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for his gracious words of welcome, particularly because he was due to be standing at this Dispatch Box. When I saw him walk into Westminster Hall, I have to admit that my blood ran slightly cold, worrying that perhaps our shared team had prepared the same speech for us both to give—I should have known better.

We on this side of the House recognise the huge benefits that education brings to supporting aspiration and helping to fulfil potential. Whether at home or abroad, we know that education lays the foundation for young people to build better futures. Here in England, the last Conservative Government raised standards in our schools and lifted the UK’s standing in international league tables for literacy to first in the western world, and fourth in the world. We also increased the number of full-time teachers by around 27,000, which is about 2,000 a year on average—a higher annual rate of growth than the 6,500 over five years promised by the current Government.

Internationally, we played our part in supporting initiatives to lift people out of poverty. With the United Nations International Day of Education approaching on 24 January, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the links between education and economic development, and the role that the UK can play. Members will be aware of the UN’s sustainable development goal 4, which focuses on quality education to

“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

The previous Government focused effort and resources on this area, including expanding and improving access to education, especially for women and girls, who face particular barriers to securing a meaningful education and childhood in parts of the world. This led to 19.8 million children, including 10 million girls, being supported with a decent education since 2015. That made a profound difference to those lives.

The international women and girls strategy launched in 2023 had a strong focus on education. It highlighted the wider societal benefits of improved education for women and girls in developing countries, including that

“A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live beyond the age of five”,

is more likely to be immunised, and is about

“twice as likely to attend school.”

Girls benefiting from higher levels of education are also less likely to be affected by violence from a partner, less likely to marry as a child and more likely to find employment and start businesses. One of the great untapped potentials in developing countries is the enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit of women. Better education can help to unleash that potential. That is something that Members in all parts of the House can agree on.

That strategy also focused on the three Es of educating girls, empowering women and girls and championing their health and rights, and ending gender based violence. But education is the essential first step. I ask the Minister, are the Government committed to implementing that strategy? With international development budgets understandably being reduced to support efforts to bolster our defences and national security, can the Minister update the House on the areas where the Government intend to focus resources for the rest of the decade?

My team and I had prepared a rather different speech, but I have been very struck by the fact that four Members have mentioned Afghanistan. If the Chamber will indulge me, I, like the sponsor of this debate, would like to understand from the Minister what the Government are doing in terms of education in Syria, Iran, Gaza and the west bank and Sudan, but I want to tell a rather different story about international education.

It is 2009 and we are in Basharan in the Helmand river valley of Afghanistan. There is a small village in Basharan with a defunct school. A young company commander by the name of Sean Birchall takes over that area and is determined that the school should open for boys and girls. He spends vast amounts of time going backwards and forwards, at great risk, to Lashkar Gah to try to get the education department there to provide teachers and school equipment, such as books and chairs. Sean was killed by a bomb, leaving a widow and an 18-month-old son, Charlie. Nevertheless, the men and women in his company of Welsh Guards continued his extraordinary work and the school got up and running.

Fast forward to April the next year and I am the commanding officer of the Lashkar Gah battlegroup. We have Basharan in our patch, and very near one of the routes into Basharan was an impassable road—the Taliban had put a tax office on it and seeded it with a number of improvised explosive devices. I was given the mission to clear the road. I discussed it with the company commander and said, “It looks to me like we now need to start at one end and go to the other, or start at the other end and go to the other.” He said, “Let me have a think.” Then he said, “Right. I want to start in the middle and clear out in two directions.” I said, “Right, okay.” Taking the Taliban tax office would send a signal to the area that there was greater control.

This involved a lot of moving people and equipment around, which alerted the locals that it was happening. I was at the checkpoint nearest to where we were going to start the operation the next day, and a young lance corporal called Cammy sent a message saying, “Commanding officer to the front gate,” so I went there. My approach to counter-insurgency, which I told the battalion, was: “We need to take risks to be safer.” It is one of the paradoxes of counter-insurgency; it is incredibly dangerous but, nevertheless, it can bear results.

Cammy introduced me to a fellow with a wooden leg—a local—who had come to the gate and asked what was going on. Cammy said—he did not ask me—“I’m going to tell him the plan for tomorrow,” and I said, “Crack on.” So he told him the plan: that we were going to go in the next day and take down the tax office, and that we were going to clear the bombs but knew it was very dangerous indeed.

The man, who was known as the Muj—mujaheddin—said, “Well, I’m going to come with you tomorrow at dawn and I’m going to show you where the bombs are.” I asked him, “Why are you going to do that? It’s incredibly risky.” And he said, “I will show you where the bombs are so that you can clear them, so that you can open the road and my daughter can go to Basharan school.”

We all had a fitful night’s sleep, and, good as gold, the next day, at dawn, he turned up and we gave him a can of yellow spray-paint, and he hopscotched his way around a high-density minefield and sprayed paint on where the bombs were. It is so rare for the good that we enable off the security line of operations—namely education—to play so directly into local consent, in order to advance the cause and British interests.

Under the UK aid flag, our support for education should be a sign of hope and freedom for those who receive it. We have had strong successes in recent years in delivering quality education for those who need it across the world, providing new opportunities for millions. Along with our key partners, the UK should continue to play a leading role, exercising our resources, leverage and expertise to improve educational outcomes and lift millions, globally, out of poverty and into a better future.