3 October 2008

The ‘black swan,’ as the banking crisis has come to be known after the novel of the same name, haunted the Party Conferences this year. Each day as news screens across the world spluttered into life, the sense of depression deepened. In such circumstances, it was hard to concentrate on domestic policy. There were some lighter moments; the distribution of ‘Milibananas’ at the Conservative Conference parodying David Miliband’s arrival at the Labour Conference holding aloft a banana being a case in point, but these were few and far between.

The financial crisis may yet prove a defining moment for each of the Parties. Gordon Brown used it to take a swipe at his opponents both inside and outside the Party; “I am all in favour of apprenticeships” he said, “but let me tell you this is no time for a novice.” It was thought that this was aimed at any Young Turk called David but certainly David Cameron was having none of it. He argued that it wasn’t so much the old hand of experience that was needed during these troubled times so much as “judgement and character.” As for Nick Clegg, he claimed that New Labour was “finished” and the Conservatives were “arrogant.”

As for education, in the run up to the Conferences, the Times Ed carried out a survey to see which Party was most popular with teachers. The Lib – Dems came out on top, the Conservatives came in second and Labour slunk in third. In terms of policies, the single most popular education proposal identified by teachers was the pledge by the Conservatives to grant teachers’ anonymity until an allegation was actually proven in a court of law. Other Conservative policies such as expanding the Academy programme, the use of setting by ability in certain subjects and encouraging Ofsted to burst through the door without warning, were perhaps understandably, less welcomed by teachers. Another policy unpopular with teachers was the listing of ‘under – performing’ schools by the Government as part of the National Challenge. Such naming and shaming rankles highly with teachers, as does the use of business partners running schools for profit. Teachers generally are wary of free markets in education.

Lib – Dems gained the edge because overall they seemed more in tune with teachers’ values and were seen as having the most popular education policies including: tidying up regulation and standards through a new Independent Educational Standards Authority, scrapping national tests at 14 and developing a pupil premium to boost funding for disadvantaged pupils. The pupil premium idea, for example, was adopted by the Lib – Dem Conference last year and Nick Clegg committed to raising this to £2.5bn during his leadership campaign. It was a popular enough policy to be adopted by the Conservatives as well.

Further policies were added at each of the Party Conferences this year.

First up were the Lib – Dems where the theme was freeing up the education system from central control or the great “Whitehall screwdriver” as David Laws, the Lib – Dem Schools Spokesman called it. Alarmingly he identified that “since 1997, we have been force – fed 14 Education Bills, 370 Consultation Papers and over 1,600 new parliamentary regulations.” “One education measure every two days,” he calculated and on that basis more hammer than screwdriver. He called for an Education Freedom Act to give power back to schools, parents and local authorities and, warming to his theme, he called for an axing of Key Stage 3 tests and ‘a sweeping away of quangos’ to establish an independent Educational Standards Authority. But his most eye catching message concerned the National Curriculum: “the 635 pages of the National Curriculum should go into the shredder and be replaced with something closer to the 21 pages that do the job in places like Sweden.” The Shadow Schools Secretary clearly has access to a large tool box.

Next up were Labour where the Blairite days of using Conference to announce a fresh blizzard of initiatives seemed far away. Ed Balls took as his theme ‘giving every child a fair chance in life.’ Under this theme, he announced six measures. First, and following a year long inquiry by a Government taskforce, £300m will be made available to ensure that children from disadvantaged families get the chance to have a free computer and broadband access. The aim is for universal home access by 2011. Second, new legislation will be introduced to ensure all schools comply with more flexible working conditions for teachers. Third, a new statutory body will be set up to protect the interests of support staff. Fourth, to support the drive to raise standards under the National Challenge, funding will be used to transform some schools into National Challenge Trust schools. Fifth, a new system of dealing with parental complaints will be trialled and last but not least, free school meals for primary school children will also be trialled.

Over in the world of skills and HE, the main announcement was an endorsement of what American universities call ‘a talent pool,’ in effect bright kids in schools not typically used to sending such pupils to university, will be talent spotted and nurtured from an early age. Nine universities have signed up to the scheme, all selective and John Denham used the platform to add his blessing to it.

And so on to the Conservative Conference where the prospect of appearing a genuine Government – in – waiting added a distinct tingle to the proceedings.

The Shadow Skills Secretary, David Willetts, unveiled a £20m scheme to strengthen “the vocational pathway” into HE using a system of HE bursaries for apprenticeships particularly for those in STEM subject areas. The Shadow Welfare Secretary, Chris Grayling, launched “a plan for social reform;” basically a two way contract involving help and support to get people back into work balanced against an expectation that everyone able to work would be expected to take up the help on offer or “they will automatically lose their benefits until they do so.”

But it was the Shadow Schools Secretary, Michael Gove, who was the conductor in chief with a series of eye catching proposals of how a future Conservative Government would hit the ground running. “On day one, we would legislate to give teachers more powers to keep order …in the first few weeks, we’ll cut the guff, the bureaucracy, the box ticking and get common sense back in the classroom ..we will double the number of academies currently planned …and in the first Queen’s Speech legislate for a new system of independent state schools based on the model in Sweden.” Another convert to the charms of the Swedish model.

© Edexcel Policy Watch 2008. Steve Besley is General Manger of Education Policy at Edexcel. Policy watch is a service intended to help busy people understand developments in the world of education. Visit Edexcel at www.edexcel.org.uk