A GREAT education is the foundation of everything we achieve in life.

Worryingly there is an overwhelming body of evidence to show that, as well as a North-South economic divide, there is now a growing educational disconnect.

Could this be down to funding? A new analysis by IPPR North reveals that northern secondary schools receive, on average, £1,300 less per pupil than schools in London.

Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why 70 per cent of 16-year-olds leave school in London with five good GCSE grades compared to 63 per cent in Yorkshire and Humberside.

Doing well in school has a knock-on effect into adulthood. Good grades lead to enhanced lifetime earnings because, increasingly, employers are overlooking job applicants with poor qualifications.

Last year, a study by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that schools in London are 50 per cent better at turbocharging the achievements of their pupils from poor backgrounds.

This glaring disparity between ambition and attainment, and the subsequent wage earning repercussions, threatens to increase the wealth gap between London and the rest of the country in the forthcoming decade.

In effect, the North-South divide in education is driving the economic wedge between the capital and the North-East even deeper.

We support calls for an increase in the pupil premium for schools in disadvantaged areas. It is iniquitous that, in the 21st Century, where a child grows up is likely to determine their level of academic success.

If the Government is serious about making the Northern Powerhouse initiative work it needs to address the link between demographics and destiny.