General Election – Education

Feb 10, 2018

Written By Jack J Collins, Editor of AllAboutLaw.co.uk

In the first part of our six-part series on the General Election, we break down the Education policies of the different parties and examine what they mean in the grander scheme of the country as a whole.

Education is clearly a massive feature in the election landscape, and even more important to young people because it has a tangible effect on their day-to-day lives. So what are the parties promising for education?

Conservatives

More bursaries for graduates entering teaching
Removal of free school lunches and replacing with free breakfasts
Lifting the ban on creation of new grammar schools

The Conservative manifesto opens by calling for more support for teachers, beginning with a bursary scheme to attract more graduates into the profession. There is also the offer of a suspension of student loan repayments as long as a teacher remains part of the education sector.

There’s a focus on increasing technology and using it to assist teachers with planning and developing lessons. Theresa May has also called for more balance to be used in terms of how funds are distributed across the country.

The Tories "do not believe that giving school lunches to all children free of charge for the first three years of primary school – regardless of the income of their parents – is a sensible use of public money."

In its stead, they suggest that free school breakfasts will be given out across primary schools, as this is less in demand, and that children from low-income families will receive free school lunches throughout primary and secondary school.

The Conservatives also propose that they will build at least 100 new free schools a year in a programme which they suggested during their current government, but never got around to. They also will lift the ban on building new selective, grammar schools, reversing a policy which was implemented in 1976 because it was deemed unfit for purpose.

Labour

Extending free school meals to all primary school children
Measures to cap class sizes in schools
Commitment to new school buildings and removal of asbestos

The first of Labour’s policies on education focuses on investment in schools, to ensure that they have enough resources. There is a proposal to build new schools across the board, at both primary and secondary level, and also to ensure the removal of asbestos from the buildings at existing schools. Labour have pledged over £5 billion to make sure that no school makes a loss from a funding overhaul, paid for by an increase in corporation tax.

There is also a heavy emphasis on improving the quality of teaching in the sector, and the manifesto statement says that the party want to "drive up the standard across the board."

A denouncement of the ‘super-size classrooms’ which have expanded under the Conservatives comes with a pledge that accountability will be placed on individual schools, to ensure that requirements for the number of children expected in each class is met.

Labour have also pledged to reinstate the Education Maintenance Allowance grants that were abolished by the Coalition government, which are weekly payments to encourage 16-18 year olds to stay in school or college.

The party have also set out a vision for boosting adult education, and have highlighted that the abolition of tuition fees at University is one of the things they would look to achieve should they be elected into government.

Liberal Democrats

£7 billion to halt Tory cuts to schools
Return to local authority control – reversal of Tory Grammar School plans
Remove caps on pay rises for teachers

The Liberal Democrats titled the section of their manifesto which concerns young people appropriately, saying that they would "put children first".

The party have highlighted that the quality of education that children receive can be "distorted by a school's need to focus on league tables."

Plans have been proposed to invest £7 billion extra into education and to triple the Early Years Pupil Premium to £1000, to provide those with disadvantaged backgrounds an even ground when it comes to education.

The Liberal Democrats, like Labour, are fundamentally opposed to the idea of grammar schools, and would look to give control back to local authorities regarding admissions and the creation of new schools.

Tim Farron and his party have pledged to spend £7 billion on the protection of funding on a ‘per-pupil’ basis, and also have pledged to improve the quality of teaching across the UK by removing current caps on pay rises and increasing funding for long-term teacher training, thus increasing numbers of teachers in a selection of key fields.

The Green Party

Scrapping tuition fees and bringing back maintenance grants
Continuing the Erasmus student exchange programme after Brexit
Pledging to maintain equivalent funding for Universities losing cash from the EU

Within the Green Party's manifesto, they basically call for a complete end to privatisation in education, which is an opinion they feel represents the majority of "teachers, parents and young people."

An increase in funding per pupil in schools is another policy proposed by the Greens, and they want a full protection to be developed for this funding. They have suggested the abolition of Key Stage 1 SATs exams and the reduction of class sizes, while bringing Academies and Free Schools under the control of local authorities, much like the Lib Dems.

The Green Party will look to change the current "crisis of teacher workload", by ending OFSTED inspections and reforming the curriculum to focus on individual pupils, which would free up more time for teachers to be able to develop their craft.

UKIP

Suspension of new Islamic faith schools
Abolition of SATs
Removal of sexual education from primary school syllabuses

UKIP have basically taken the exact same policies that they put forward in the 2015 manifesto, which basically centres around three main points. The first pledge is to abolish SAT tests for school children, as they believe that "seven is too young to be tested and this test narrows the curriculum and puts pressure on teachers to concentrate time and resources on borderline pupils."

They have also called for a halt on the creation of new Islamic faith schools until ‘more progress has been made in integrating Muslims into mainstream society’ and also say they will shut down any school where there is evidence of Islamist ideology being taught.

UKIP has also suggested that sexual education should not feature in the primary school curriculum, instead putting the funds towards improving the quality and quantity of the same classes in later education.

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