Education

To be fair to Kevin Brennan, he seems to have updated his attack line on Michael Gove since his ‘don’t-call-teachers-names’ press release that Labour sent out overnight. The party’s shadow education minister is now attacking the Education Secretary for inconsistency, arguing that his announcement today on improving teacher training contradicts the decision to allow academies and free schools to employ unqualified teachers. He has just told BBC News: ‘But what’s rather strange about what the Government is doing is at the same time it’s saying there should be more rigour in the testing of teachers as they go in to the profession, it’s saying more and more schools can hire

Yesterday Fraser asked: Scotland has a tragically long list of problems (especially with inner-city poverty) and [the No campaign] can ask: which of these problem would independence solve? This is a fair question, albeit one that offers the retort: and which of them are being solved by the Union the noo? Of course, this question was asked before devolution too. In broad terms, Alex Salmond has the same range of powers as those enjoyed by Secretaries of State for Scotland in the pre-devolution age. Not all of those have been used. Devolution was essentially the democratisation of existing administrative devolution that, quite properly, already took account of Scotland’s distinct place

The great paradox of British politics is that the left moan about inequality, but it’s the right who will remedy it. Ed Miliband is proposing the restoration of the old order, where the poor get the worst schools and the rich get the best (and the opportunities that flow from it). Labour plans to tax the rich more, and give money to the poor as if by way of compensation. The Tories want to revolutionise the system, so the poor have the same choice of schools that today only the rich can afford. Labour wants to make sure the unemployed are well looked-after. The Tories want to make sure the

For months now, David Cameron and his government have been pursued around the ring. Chased by Labour and harassed by events they have often been caught on the ropes. Off-balance and out of position Cameron has struggled to respond to Labour’s jabs. No wonder he’s behind on points. The Prime Minister’s speech to the Conservative party conference this morning was a counter-attack. Cameron has had enough of running; now he means to stand in the centre of the ring and trade blows with the opposition. It will be a rare old tear-up. Those who say this was a speech delivered to his party, not his country are, I think, mistaken.

The speed with which Michael Gove is going about his education reforms means that he is creating facts on the grounds, facts which Labour will—I suspect—have to accept by the next election. Parents with children at new free schools and academies are not going to vote for a party that is going to abolish their child’s school. For example, the mother of a child at a Birmingham free school—Geraldine Henry—spoke at Tory conference today in favour of free schools. I expect that Henry would never have expected to find herself speaking at a Tory conference but she clearly felt compelled to come and promote and defend her son’s school. As

A Labour conference delegate was heckled from the floor when she mentioned her school. Joanne, an immigrant who came to this country seeking political asylum and is about to read law, came face to face with the vested interests that blight education reform: the hall did not like the fact that she went to an Academy school. A delegate started shouting about comprehensive schooling, much to the horror of those around her. Michael Gove has come down on the girl’s side, he has just told me: ‘Heckling a schoolgirl because she goes to an academy is disgraceful. But it also shows the real face of Labour – a party where

It doesn’t seem entirely fair that Stephen Twigg’s speech has been left to the final day of the Labour conference, when many have packed up and left Manchester already. But today Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary is to announce more reforms to education as part of the party’s new One Nation project. The idea is to make teaching an ‘elite profession for top graduates’, and Twigg plans to achieve that by offering incentives for high-flyers to work in tough schools such as paying off some of their student debt, funding for teachers to do master’s degrees and a National College for Teaching Excellence to develop new teaching standards. The centrepiece of

Each day of the Labour conference covers a different aspect of Britain that Ed Miliband wants to rebuild, and tomorrow’s theme as the Labour leader gives his speech will be rebuilding the education system. Miliband will announce plans for a new Technical Baccalaureate which starts at 14 and runs until 18. The idea is to target those children who will not be going to university, but who, according to Miliband, do not currently have the same road map for their future as those going down an academic route. Describing these students as the ‘forgotten 50 per cent’, he will say: ‘In the 21st century everyone should be doing some form

There’s much speculation today that Labour’s decision to oppose the coalition’s GCSE replacement the EBC means that the new exams will never happen. The argument goes that if the Tories aren’t in government, Labour — or a Labour-led coalition — would simply keep GCSEs going. (This depends on Labour continuing to oppose the new exams which they may not if they prove to be as popular as some pollsters expect them to be). But keeping GCSEs going is nowhere near as simple as it sounds. The exam boards will now turn nearly all of their attention to winning the one available English Baccalaureate Certificate contract for each subject. Those boards

The news that the coalition will announce on Tuesday that it is scrapping GCSEs is welcome. GSCEs are a devalued qualification and replacing them with a far more rigorous exam should boost England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s global competiveness as well as preparing pupils better for A-Levels. (Simon Walters’ scoop has the details on how the new qualification will differ from GCSEs). That this change is going ahead is a sign that the coalition is now functioning far better than it was a few months ago. When the idea of getting rid of GSCEs was originally floated back in June, Clegg reacted with unthinking fury. But in talks that have