BEFORE the general election the asked the Department of Education to suggest ways of axing E400m from the education budget.
So it's cuts, and what cise?
The Queen's Speech stated that legislation would allow those councils which have not gone comprehensive to relain their grammat schools, while money will be provided to cover leet at independent sincois for seiccied DuDus. The fact that nothing is inteoded for the extension of nursery education, nothing for developing further and higher education, emphasises Thaicher's so-called freedom is for that deprived sector of society, the pay for their educational privileges through local authority finances. sector and the expected the salaries hill, coupled with the cuts in expenditure, will simply mean run down of cducation majority of students of all ages.
To make all chis palatable, the idea of parental choice and the pursuit of excellence are bandied about. What this means is indicated by che plans unveiled by Secretary Mark Carlisle before the clection, here will be more tests for schoo tudents, and results will be measure against a national yardstick. Working for exams will be the prospect facing students of all ages.
Metbods of teaching associated with progressivism, such as mixed ability teaching, will be actively discouraged be introduced to that for the private increases in Education For the majority:
industry.
comprehcasive schools will do, provided they have an inbuilt serening process to cream oft a selected few to fill the needs of To keep the schools on their toes the inspectorate is to be increased exam published and -parents charter will give them more choice over secondary schools, Parental choice for tbe Tories is simply another pressure on schools maintain traditional curriculum and values. No doubt corporal punishment will encouraged as a way to improve standards.
In the contest of cuts and fallink rolls, when school finance is allocated on the number of students, these policies can only lead to false and the pernicious competition schools, rather than united demands for improvement. be It is the old divide and rule strategy.
But instead of campaigning working discussing educational policy and the needs of students, the National Union of Teachers has rejected the Taylor proposals on parental representation.
FIGHTING BACK How do you regard the Tory victory?
of and Tory in In the week when Callaghan told the unions they must not take political action against the Tories, John Ross asked ERNIE ROBERTS -the newly-elected Labour MP for Hackney North and a leading left winger — about the reasons for Labour's defeat, his views on action law. outside Parlament to bring down Thatcher's government, and whether we should obey the On the issue of the Labour Party leadership, Roberts savs that Benn should Callaghan now. challenge