Johnson Forces Out Top Education Official to Quell Tory Anger
- Premier says education department needs ‘fresh leadership’
- Removal follows party ire on masks and grades controversies
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Boris Johnson forced out Britain’s top education civil servant, seeking to distance himself from a series of recent mishaps and policy U-turns that have prompted growing outrage from his own Conservative Party.
“The Prime Minister has concluded that there is a need for fresh official leadership at the Department for Education,” a government statement said Wednesday, announcing the departure of Jonathan Slater, who’d been in the post for four years. His removal follows the resignation this week of the head of England’s exams regulator, Sally Collier, after a controversy where the government was forced to regrade results from exams children didn’t sit.