Member News
During the election campaign ePolitix.com will be focusing on policy areas, today it is education and skills.
Graham Hoyle OBE, chief executive of the Association of Learning Providers, writes for ePolitix.com on the importance of apprenticeships and skilling the workforce.
Ian Toone, senior professional officer (education) for Voice, outlines its ambitions for the teaching sector post-election.
Brett Wigdortz, founder and chief executive of Teach First, discusses the recruitment of skilled teachers in the current political climate.
Naomi Phillips, public affairs officer at the British Humanist Association, puts forward the case to end religious involvement in education.
We discuss the future of higher education with Professor Ruth Farwell, chair of GuildHE.
While John Stone, chief executive of LSN, speaks to ePolitix.com about how education and learning policy will need to develop in the post-election landscape.
And below we detail the three main parties key policy pledges on education and skills.
Labour
* Ring-fence science budget in next spending Review
* Evaluate the case for universal free school Meals
* Guaranteed mentoring and support for higher education applications to all low-income pupils with the potential for university study, with extra summer schools and help with UCAS applications
* Universities will be required clearly to set out how they will ensure a high-quality learning experience for students
* Introduce greater freedom for all colleges to respond to local community needs and free them up from red tape
* Pioneer University Technical Colleges and new Studio Schools
* New Teacher Training Academies and £10,000 'golden handcuffs' to attract the best teachers into the most challenging schools
* New independent exam regulator to ensure that standards are being maintained
* Pioneering cooperative trust schools where parents, teachers and the local community come together to help govern their local school
* From 2013 all suitably-qualified 16-18 year olds entitled to an apprenticeship place
* Overhaul the careers services available to young people
* £10,000 'Golden Handcuffs' to attract the best teachers to the most challenging schools
* Improve the statementing process to give more support to parents, and increase the supply of teachers with the specialist skills needed to teach pupils with severe learning disabilities in special schools
* Reform the primary curriculum reforms to create more flexibility for teachers
Conservatives
* Initiate a multi-year Science and Research Budget to provide a stable investment climate for Research Councils and establishing a new prize for engineering
* Fund 10,000 extra university places paid for by giving graduates incentives to pay back their student loans early
* Further education colleges freed from direct state control and funding to be delivered by a new Further Education Funding Council
* Graduates must have at least a 2:2 degree to access taxpayer-funded primary school teacher training
* Make exams more robust by giving universities and academics more say over their form and content
* Every pupil the to have the chance to study separate sciences at GCSE
* Allow good education providers to set up new Academy schools and let communities take over and run schools threatened with closure
* Give SMEs a £2,000 bonus for every apprentice they hire, establish a Community Learning Fund and a new all-age careers service
* Give all head teachers the power to pay good teachers more
* End the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools.
* Reform the National Curriculum so that it is more challenging and based on evidence about what knowledge can be mastered by children at different ages.
Liberal Democrats
* No commitment to increase science spending in the current economic climate, but political interference will be removed
* Scrap university tuition fees over a six-year period and create a National Bursary Scheme to support poorer students and those in strategic subjects such as science and maths
* Replace the Skills Funding Agency and the Higher Education Funding Council for England with a Council for Adult Skills and Higher Education
* Match funding between Further Education Colleges and school sixth forms
* Improve teacher training by increasing the size of the school-based Graduate Teacher Programme
* Establish an independent Education Standards Authority, replacing the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and OFQUAL, and incorporating OFSTED
* Give 14–19 year-olds the right to take up a course at college, rather than at school, if it suits enabling all to study.
* Replace academies with sponsor-managed schools accountable to local authorities and run by groups such as educational charities or parents
* Fully fund the off-the-job costs of adult apprenticeships – currently met by employers – for one year End train to gain funding for large businesses and fully fund off-the-job costs of adult apprenticeships for one year
* Invest an additional £2.5bn in education, targeted at the most disadvantaged pupils
* Increase schools’ and colleges’ flexibility to pay teachers more, while retaining a national minimum pay level
* Guarantee special educational needs assessments for all five-year-olds and improve SEN provision and training
* Replace the national curriculum with a Minimum Curriculum Entitlement
* Pass an Education Freedom Act banning ministers from interfering in the day-to-day running of schools
Article Comments
The common mental blockage that all these proposals share is that they equate 'education' with 'school' or some other institution. The words 'school' and 'education' are NOT synonymous. This may sound like a statement of the bleedin' obvious, but there is a common assumption that education only takes place in schools and therefore if we improve schools, we improve education.
It isn't the teachers who are getting education wrong. It isn't the pupils who can't learn. It isn't the parents who make the wrong choice... It's the system: the ludicrous insistence that academic ability is the greatest good for all children whatever their individual aptitudes and preferences, despite the fact that once you have left school almost no-one is remotely interested in your academic ability - except, perhaps, another academic institution or, if you are a potential employer, as a kind of crude coarse filter to reduce the number of applicants from a long list to a short one.
The solution isn't more choice, it isn't better schools. It's different education.
End school at fourteen - but only when a School Leaving Certificate has been gained (a certificate of competence to deal with the adult world, NOT of academic ability) and allow young people to go to teachers (not School Teachers) to learn whatever they wish to learn, to experiment, to fail and try again, be it as artists, artisans or academics. We need to value those who are good at doing things, useful things and not just those who are 'good at school'.
More may be learned by visiting www.wotnoschool.com
John Harrison co-author 'Wot, No School? how schools impede education'
John Harrison
6th May 2010 at 9:11 am
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd
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