he exams crisis in England and Wales this summer threatens to be as damaging for the public’s confidence in the ability of Boris Johnson’s government to tackle regional inequalities and level up Britain as the crisis over the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) was for John Major’s reputation on economic management. How it responds now is pivotal for the country’s future, but also the current administration’s. As soon as the decision was taken to close schools in mid-March, it was clear that there needed to be a plan in place for reopening them and helping young people catch up on the education they lost out on during lockdown. It was also clear that children who were already less privileged were most affected by the shutdown. It was clear when life-defining exams were cancelled that there would also need to be a way to ensure university places, apprenticeships and wider employment opportunities wouldn’t become even further out of reach. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, was right to say sorry to young people for the school exam disruption they’ve had to suffer, but ultimately actions speak louder than words. What is most important now is to find a route forward: young people need to be able to develop their talents and find further opportunities. While talk from the government about levelling up has continued, levelling down is what’s happened in reality. To start reversing that trend, the prime minister must deliver on his promise to have children back in full-time education for the start of the September term. Alongside that, there must be a properly resourced plan to support every child to catch up on lost time, and more personalised tutoring and support for those worst affected. The government has had long enough to work through these challenges. It’s also time to redefine what we mean by “talent”. The exams chaos underlines the need to accelerate moves to strength-based recruitment – for university admissions, apprenticeships and employment. A smarter approach means assessing the rest of a young person’s wider potential beyond purely academic attainment assessed through an exam. Academic exam grades end up being an overly narrow, traditional measure or proxy of a young person’s potential that can be gamed by the extra investment for those in private education. It’s an old-fashioned measure in a world where companies I’ve been working with through the Social Mobility Pledge are increasingly, and in some cases entirely, ignoring academic levels, to find the best talent. These are businesses that understand that their best performers are those who can overcome adversity, are motivated and can work in teams. And they increasingly know that they often find young people with those values from less privileged backgrounds, rather than those who have had a gilded journey through the early years of life, cocooned from the diversity of modern Britain. These employers are finding their best talent beyond blue chip schools and Russell Group universities. Finally, we need to address the inability of the UK economy to generate high-skill, high-salary career opportunities for young people when they graduate from higher education. The chancellor and his Treasury officials have to bring forward a plan for that. It’s welcome that the government has already retreated from its previous view that too many young people were going on to higher education and wasting their degrees in lower-skilled jobs. Newer, growing universities in areas where numbers of young people going on to higher education are historically low are the social mobility hothouses that ministers should look to for inspiration and example rather than simply denigrating these institutions. It’s a crucial time. Delaying the budget planned for September would be a recipe for more chaos – a government continuing to be shaped by events, rather than shaping them. If ministers should have learned one thing from the exams fiasco, it is that you don’t fix problems by pretending they don’t exist, it only lets them get worse. Talented young people from less privileged backgrounds and their employers know that they succeed by getting ahead of challenges, finding ways to overcome them and understanding how you can use adversity to your own advantage. Ministers now have to show whether they have the same abilities in running the country effectively. Beyond that, they must demonstrate that they can transform a country where connections count more than competence. The public expect results and nowhere more so than on the issue of education restarting for all our children and young people. The impact on social mobility will continue to be felt for a long time. • Justine Greening is founder of the Social Mobility Pledge, and the former MP for Putney