Blair: Promised further educational reform

Tony Blair has contrasted his plans for education with "regressive and extreme" Tory policies.

Delivering a keynote election speech in Bolton on Wednesday, the prime minister said the "improvements" Labour had made in schools, training and childcare since 1997 were simply a "platform for radical transformation" in a third term.

He also said he would continue to focus on the "issues" in the election, rather than resort to personal and negative campaign tactics.

However, he used a large chunk of the speech to dismantle the Conservative record in office on education, and argue that Michael Howard wants to go further than Margaret Thatcher did in encouraging elitism.

"Education has barely featured in the media coverage in this election," Blair said. "Yet there is no bigger issue that will determine Britain's future – both the individual's ability to get a good job at a decent wage and the nation's ability to prosper in the era of globalisation.

"The choice is fundamental because under Labour every penny piece of extra investment will go to state schools. Under the Tories, £2bn will go to subsidise a small number of children at private schools.

"Under Labour, there will be no return to selection at the age of 11. Under the Tories, there will be a free-for-all on admissions that will lead to many more parents being unable to get their child into a good school.

"Under Labour, there will be maintenance grants for poorer students and a fair repayment system once students graduate, so we can expand student numbers and invest in universities. Under the Tories, the student loan book will be privatised to make up the funding gap, which will mean real rates of interest on existing student loans, hitting poorest students hardest.

"It is a choice between a policy designed to help all Britain's children get the best chance in life, and a policy that will continue the age old British disease of educating well only the elite at the top. We should be curing that disease, not perpetuating it."

Inspiration

The prime minister said he was inspired to make education Labour's "top priority" 10 years ago by a landmark independent national commission on the subject in 1993.

It found that Britain was suffering in international comparisons as a result of failing to meet the needs of the majority, invest in adult skills or start teaching early enough.

But he argued that the then Tory government had chosen to cut spending and invest in private sector subsidies for the rich instead.

And he added that the current Conservative leadership had still not learned the lessons, branding their "right to choose" policy a new version of John Major's assisted places scheme.

"A policy of vouchers for private schools is more extreme than anything in the Thatcher years," Blair said.

"It is the same with two other key policies of theirs for this election – quotas for exam results, and a free-for-all in school admissions.

"The new policy, more extreme than anything the Tories did in government, would deny pupils the exam results and qualifications they deserve, purely to meet arbitrary quotas set to appeal to the reactionary 'more means worse' tendency in the Tory party.

"So the Tories haven't changed and haven't learned. They have not only moved backwards, but into policies which are so unfair, incoherent and unworkable that they couldn't be implemented even if they wanted to."

Improvement

Blair boasted of Labour's record on education since 1997, but said this was only a starting point for far-reaching reforms in a third term.

"What we have achieved so far is simply a platform for our third term mission if re-elected: to take forward and embed these improvements in the education system so that we transform Britain into a genuine opportunity society where the great majority achieve well at school, stay in education or training right up until the age of 18 – abolishing the old idea of an education leaving age of 16 – and engage in lifelong learning beyond," he said.

"I believe this is an absolutely achievable objective with a continued will to invest and reform. Our manifesto sets out what this means.

"It means increasing investment every year, continuing to raise spending on education as a proportion of our national income.

"It means 3,500 under-fives centres, one for every community, with extended maternity and paternity rights for parents, an extension of Sure Start, and an increase to at least 15 hours a week of free nursery provision for all three and four year olds.

"It means modernising all our primary schools and secondary schools buildings – in the next five years 1,000 secondary schools and thousands more primary schools either completely rebuilt, or with the new classrooms, sports halls and computer centres they need. It means higher standards year by year in all schools."

He pointed to plans for more specialist schools, extended school hours, three-year budgets and university places as "the basis on which we can move from improvement to transformation".

Blair concluded that the May 5 poll was "a fundamental choice".

"There could be no more important choice facing the country than how we educate our young people," he said.

"And when the media say this election is boring, I say there is nothing more interesting than their child's education, and I will fight to the end of my political life to give a good education to all children, not just a few."