Government misses opportunity with new Education Bill

28 February 2006

Commenting on the new Education Bill published today, Steve Sinnott, General Secretary of Europe’s biggest teachers’ organisation, the National Union of Teachers, said:

“This Bill is a missed opportunity rather than a defining moment. A Labour government in its third term could have built on its successes in funding and in establishing universal nursery education.

“Instead it has chosen to pursue the dead end of more structural reform insisting on trust schools when there is no evidence that they will do anything to raise standards.

“The proposals in the Bill which support teachers’ efforts in tackling bad pupil behaviour are overshadowed by the Government’s obsession with so-called choice and diversity.

“The Government’s claim that specialist schools represent a model for trust status is false. Specialist schools are community schools happy to work with their local authorities and value the support they provide.

“If the Government had really wanted to tackle selection, it should have wiped out schools’ ability to select by aptitude. The retention of such procedures allows the Conservatives to propose, in effect, a return to the 11-plus.

“Unchecked school expansion will be costly and wasteful, leading to other schools closing resulting in damage to surrounding communities.”