Election 2010: Education & Family Policies

The date for the 2010 general election has been called, with the vote to take place in under a month’s time on 6th May. One of the areas that is often key at election time are the policies relating to children and families. Here we take a look at the differing policies among the three main political parties on these issues.

Among Labour’s pledges for the upcoming election is that every child will leave school confident in literacy and numeracy, two areas that can be crucial in most people future, both personally and in employment. They have also promised to improve the state of school buildings, saying they will rebuild or refurbish all secondary and half of the primary schools in the coming years, although as yet they have not specified what “coming years” implies. Pupils achieving an A* to C grade in their GCSE’s is a priority for all schools, and Labour has specified that they expect at least 30% of pupils to achieve this in every school. They have stated that there will be a guarantee of a good education for all children, but have not specified how this will be judged. One to one tuition for pupils struggling with English and Maths is another Labour pledge.

Although no figures have been released, Labour have promised to increase child benefit and child tax credit. Childcare is another area important to many parents and Labour have stated that Mothers and Fathers will be more equal when it comes to parental leave and there will be a wider availability of childcare.

The Conservative Party are prioritising in part with attempting to raise the standard of teaching by raising the entry requirements for teacher training. They would also like to give head teachers more control, specifically allowing them to pay good teachers better. An interesting point they have made is that they would make it easier for schools to use reasonable force to combat violence in schools, but what is meant by reasonable force is unclear. They are also looking to reform the way children are taught and assessed. Should they win the election they will reform the national curriculum and overhaul key stage 2 tests, while bringing in a simple reading test at the age of 6.

The Tories have continuously states the importance of family in society and have promised to help hard working families. They have, though, vowed to limit the child trust fund to only the poorest families, likely to be those with an income of under £16,000 a year.

The Liberal Democrats have promised to reduce class sizes and offer more one-to-one tuition by providing school with an extra £2.5 billion to achieve this. They would also take steps to encourage higher performing schools to take more children from deprived backgrounds. They would also like to create a national diploma that would combine GCSE’s, A-levels and vocational qualifications.

Like the Conservatives, the Lib Dem’s plan to change the child trust fund, but they would take it even further, by scrapping the Labour introduced scheme altogether. They say they would spend the money saved to help children in other ways, specifically in education.

Andrew Marshall (c)