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'Positive Policy' - Education: What Labour did wrong & What Tories can do right
Posted by Catey Maxx (@cateymaxx)
Thursday, 4th March 2010
I began my teaching career under a Tory government, and was forced to end it under the fag end of a Labour one.
As a fledgling student at university, I remember being asked by one of my Labour supporting counterparts,
"How on earth can you be a teacher and vote Conservative?"
"Quite easily!" I replied.
In hindsight a little idealistic, but never-the-less, the beginning of a beautiful (if not at times volatile) friendship.
Teaching at that time was all about inspiring and entertaining young people into learning. It was about spontaneity, humour and having fun. Teachers taught through a range of topics, and included the 'core' and 'foundation' subjects as an integral part of each day. Lessons were planned - outcomes were set - and assessments were made as a matter of professional course. Everything was ticking along quite nicely thank you very much, until that apocalyptic day in May 1997. Labour swept to power and the country changed forever.
The English education system is now an unrecognisable shadow of it's former self. Systemic ideological flaws at the heart of government have presided over a meltdown in the classroom. As with every area of life in Britain, traditional values, common sense and discipline have given way to hysterical political correctness, bureaucratic dogma and subordination. Never is this more evident than in the schools of today.
The 1997 New Labour's manifesto stated the following:
- "Education will be our number one priority, and we will increase the share of national income spent on education."
- "We must recognise the 3 'R's for what they are - building blocks of all learning that must be taught better
- “We will achieve this by improving the skills of the teaching force; ensuring a stronger focus in the curriculum; and piloting literacy summer schools to meet our new target that within a decade every child leaves primary school with a reading age of at least 11".
There is little doubt that Labour's manifesto pledge to massively increase spending on education has been honoured, (they always seem to manage that part,) but to what end?
The Bow group produced a report in 2007 which highlighted the number of pupils who had taken their G.C.S.E.s under Labour. The report revealed that an entire generation of nearly 4 million young people had failed to achieve 'expected' good grades at G.C.S.E. including English and Maths, and nearly 1 million had failed to achieve any G.C.S.E.s whatsoever.
It revealed that whilst spending per pupil had risen by a massive 75%, the percentage of pupils achieving passes in English and Maths had increased by a mere 9%. It concludes:
Labour has engendered a test-culture since coming to power and the fallout from this is disastrous. Children as young as four are becoming stressed months before starting school, and by the age of nine they're disillusioned due to the pressures of constant testing.
In tackling the paucity of qualified teachers the Conservatives are proposing to raise the entry requirements for taxpayer-funded primary teacher training in English and Maths - from a C to a B. Graduates will need a 2:2 and above in order to qualify from state-funded training.
This is an important step in raising the prestige of the profession. It ensures teaching is a career that people aspire to, and not one that they enter because there’s nothing better around at the time.
Critics like Fiona Miller in The Guardian have slammed the proposals, asserting that,
“ . . .this was yet again a policy designed to shut down opportunities for the majority, rather than improve them.”
Not the case. The figures speak for themselves. Labour’s at times desperate attempts at teacher recruitment have been punished, by a negligible rise in standards and a bill to the tax payer of £75 billion. Central to Conservative policy is that the children of this country deserve to be taught by teachers who are accomplished in basic literacy and numeracy. It is therefore vital, at the G.C.S.E. stage, to ensure potential teachers have these skills.
The Conservatives will introduce tough and realistic measures to give power back to those involved in frontline service. Teachers will be able to do their job, secure in the knowledge that if necessary they can use reasonable force when dealing with violent students. They will be protected from false accusations, and be able to remove disruptive pupils and items that cause disruption, without fear of legal ramifications.
In short, Conservative education policy differs from Labour’s in that it treats teachers as professionals, advocates the decentralization of power and promotes professional autonomy.
There may not be any ‘new money’ available in these exacting times, as Fiona Miller astutely points out. It’s simply a matter of using the money that is available effectively. Something that after thirteen years, Labour still haven’t managed to do.
