Tory education policy – a serious threat to the state education system

Yesterday the Tories made a telling announcement on education: if primary school pupils fail exams, they’ll be forced to re-sit them. This, they say, is the key to bringing up standards. Critics have argued the contrast; this is a wrong-headed approach that confuses testing with teaching.  Despite this dispute, if you Googled the woman who made this announcement – Education Secretary Nicky Morgan – yesterday afternoon, you wouldn’t have come across this piece of news. Instead you’d have found a list of articles exposing her somewhat confused take on Labour’s non-dom announcement. This is too often the case, while all eyes are on the story of the day, the Conservatives education announcements slip into the internet ether.

Each time this happens CCHQ are probably rubbing their hands with glee because it’s difficult to put a decent gloss on their terrible education policies.

However, as Labour launch their Education Manifesto today – because they actually have some decent policies – education will hopefully be in the spotlight. So, it’s a prime opportunity to look at the Tory offer.

Beneath Morgan’s announcement yesterday lies a whole education strategy that shows a disregard for state education and lack of concern for pupils and teachers.

For the past five years, the Tories have remained adamant that rigorous testing, in a package that reads ‘standards’, is the route to good education.

Meanwhile, they’ve willingly ignored the real problems in the state system. Teachers need more support. On average they work nearly 60 hours a week, they need policies that will decrease – not increase – their workload. One of the ways to go about doing this is to reduce class sizes; under the Tories’ watch class sizes have mushroomed, particularly troubling when the international average is 21 pupils per class, a level it has never been in the UK. Better enforcement of the 30 cap on class sizes, which Labour have pledged, is a step in the right direction. Similarly, another policy to which Labour have committed is increasing funding for schools. This would help alleviate pressures on staff but the Tories have turned the other way on this one, their proposals would see schools in England face a 10% funding cut.

The Tories won’t stop at this nonsensical, almost-obsessive focus on ‘standards’ if they get in government again. As part of their “war on illiteracy and innumeracy”, the Conservatives have said they’d force schools that fall under the Ofsted classification ‘requires improvement’ to become academies. This is hard to critique effectively because the academy system forms an educational labyrinth that’s difficult to decipher. Yet the long and short of it is that there’s no evidence academisation improves schools’ standards and this policy throws open the state education sector to the private sector.  Further forced academisation would add to the erosion of the state education system, the beginnings of which were ushered through with free schools, academies and the unqualified teachers that come with them.

It’s accepted wisdom that education forms the bedrock of society – so much so that it was central to New Labour’s ‘97 election deal, while thirteen years later their tuition fees pledge (albeit this was post-school) persuaded many to vote Lib Dem at the last election. If we can all agree on this, then the Tory offer should be exposed for what it is: a serious threat to the state education system.