
EDUCATION
Education is a public good and it should publicly controlled, not left to private profiteers whose primary concern is making money, not producing well-educated students. Decades of market-driven reforms have led to inequality, underfunding, and excessive student debt. We would bring all schools back under control of councils so education delivery can be democratically scrutinised. Schools should be accountable to parents, not the Department of Education. This does not mean returning to rigid systems with no flexibility. We want schools to be able to have flexibility in their delivery, with teachers encouraged to teach according to the needs of the student instead of a centralised tick-box culture, and entrusted with implementing policy in ways which work in reality rather than by ideology. We look to emulate the Finnish model which produces some of the best education results in the world.
We will abolish tuition fees which are a tax on aspiration, and part of the decades-long neoliberal lie that the UK government is financially constrained. Education should be publicly funded and free at the point of use just like healthcare.
We will revoke the charitable status for all private schools, require them to pay business rates, and ban claiming donations as tax relief, before merging them into the state system. If the UK is serious about giving all children an equal start in life, we cannot allow rich parents to ‘pay to win’ for their kids by buying all the best resources for themselves – all children deserve a high-quality education regardless of parental income. Poorer kids will get better resources, and richer kids get to integrate with children from other walks of life that they would otherwise never interact with, developing them into well-rounded, empathetic human beings.
Require Oxford and Cambridge to prioritise admitting 90%+ state-school students. Only 7% of children go to private school so they should only get 7% of the university places too.
Children should be taught critical thinking skills from an early age. This will protect them throughout their lives by enabling them to analyse what politicians say and makes it harder for them to get away with telling blatant lies.
They should also be given a financial education and taught what bills look like, what interest rates are, why they exist, what to do if they run into difficulties and the help that's available to them etc.
Apprenticeships should be promoted in schools as a viable career path with the same intensity as a university education. Some people are more practically-inclined and should be encouraged into avenues more suited to them, especially as the UK needs new plumbers, electricians, bricklayers etc. Apprenticeship pay should also be equalised with the Real Living Wage because there are no apprentice-level bills. Adults wanting to retrain in a practical career cannot possibly hope to survive on a few quid per hour when they have housing, utilities, food and possibly childcare costs to cover.
SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to our mailing list to hear about news and policy announcements