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Education
Conservative
& Labour |
Liberal
Democrats |
Under the
Conservatives the education system has seen standards fall due to:
- Underfunding of the education
system.
- Increasing class sizes.
- Teachers quitting the teaching
profession due to poor pay and being over worked.
- Refusing to fund the nationally
agreed teachers pay award.
- Allowing schools to fall into
disrepair.
- Introduced the highly criticised
school league tables.
- Poor standards of reading, writing
and arithmetic.
Labour have:
- Control over two-thirds of local
education authorities, for more than ten years; during this time the monitoring of
standards have been inadequate.
- Not attempted to greatly increase
the number of nursery places for three and four year olds.
- Identified £1.6 billion worth of
repairs to school buildings (1992 figure), but has not provided the necessary funds to to
carry out the repairs (In the 1992 General Election, Labour only promised a mere £30
million for school repairs).
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Liberal
Democrats want an education system aimed at acheiving the highest standards and centred on
the needs of individual pupils. We would:
- Guarantee access to nursery education for every
three and four year old.
- Invest more in education, spending an extra penny of
income tax if necessary.
- Provide an extra two billion to improve the
education system and an extra £500 million to start clearing the backlog of repairs
needed to school buildings.
- Raise standards by limiting class
sizes and introducing better inspections.
- Guarantee every 16 to 19 year old at least two days
a week high quality education, with a recognised qualification to be gained.
- Replace the rigid National Curriculum with a more
flexible Minimum Curriculum Entitlement in core subjects.
- Replace SATS with records of
achievement for every pupil.
- Increase the independence of all
schools, giving them significantly greater managerial and financial control.
- Remodel Local Education Authorities
as democratically accountable Education Departments, responsible for strategic planning,
quality assurance and arbitration.
- Oppose opting out and reintroduce
grant-maintained schools and city technology colleges into local strategic planning.
- Give Education departments six
months to produce special needs statements and funding to meet individual pupil's needs.
- Improved health education on the dangers of drugs.
- Nation-wide business mentor schemes.
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Facts & Figures.
- One in five seven year olds do not reach the
standards set for the 3R's.
- Over £1.6 billion is needed to repair school
buildings.
- Only one in three of Britain's three and four year
olds attend nursery school, this is the worst record in the European Union, apart from
Portugal.
Questions & Answers.
Q.
Your would abolish Grant Maintained Schools (GMS), taking away choice?.
A.
Liberal Democrats pioneered the idea of enabling teachers, parents and
local communities to take control of their schools and will continue to do so. GMS schools
are funded by an unelected, unaccountable quango. We would grant powers to local
representatives, accountable to local people, in short, state schools which involve their
local communities. We would also end unfair funding which offers bribes to 'op out'
schools from cash which all schools should share.
Q.
The Liberal Democrat are just another tax and spend party?.
A.
No. We will make education and training an investment priority, because
only a skilled society will be successful in today's world.
Related Topics:
Higher
& Further Education
Labour Exposed: Education, Falling
Standards
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