Manifesto round-up: Green, Lib Dems and Reform UK
We take a look at the education policies of three more parties in the run up to next month’s general election:
The Green party have pledged a major increase for school funding of £8billion, including £2billion for a pay uplift for teachers. There would be free school meals for all pupils and free breakfast clubs for primary pupils. They will also restore the education maintenance allowance for sixth form pupils. Other proposals include providing a trained, paid counsellor in every school and sixth form college, and ensuring all schools have access to an on-site medical professional. Under a Green government Ofsted would be abolished, and there would be an end to ‘high-stakes, formal testing’ at primary and secondary schools.
In their manifesto the Liberal Democrats say they will increase school and college per pupil funding above the rate of inflation every year, and also invest in new buildings and clear ‘the backlog of repairs’ in the school estate. They also intend to extend free school meals to ‘all children in poverty’, with the ambition to extend them to all primary children ‘when the public finances allow’. Other commitments include reforming Ofsted to end single word judgements, and establishing a commission to ‘broaden’ the curriculum and ‘make qualifications at 16 and 18 fit for the 21st century’.
Meanwhile, Reform UK have pledged to double the number of pupil referral units, with a lower threshold for exclusions, so that schools ‘can function safely’. They have also said they will ban ‘transgender ideology’ in schools, and require schools to provide single sex facilities. They will also review the history and social science curriculums to ensure a ‘patriotic’ curriculum in schools. For private schools, there would be tax relief of 20 per cent to incentivise those who can afford it to choose the independent sector and ‘ease pressure on state schools and improve education for all’.