Education - Liberal Democrats would make a REAL difference

7.54.11pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 11th Apr 2005

Michael Carr, Liberal Democrat Candidate for Rossendale & Darwen, who is himself a teacher, announced the Liberal Democrats top ten priorities for education.

Ten Things to achieve in Education and Skills

1 Quality for All, not Choice for the Few

2 A child centric; not institution or parent centric approach to education

3 Implementation of the Tomlinson proposals

4 Quality Schools, Locally - Choice as a positive option, not as a mechanism to avoid failure

5 Tackling the consequences of falling rolls

6 Workforce re-professionalisation, not remodelling

7 A workforce for the 21st century

8 Personalisation, freedom from the strait jacket of testing, targets and rigid curricula

9 League Tables which mean something

10 Equal and Fair Access to University

Here are our policies in a bit more detail:

Early Years (0-7); Choice and Flexibility Where it Counts

• The Maternity Income Guarantee - £170 per week for the first six months; making parenting a priority and giving mothers real choice

• Child and Working Tax Credit Reform to increase help with childcare

• Workforce Training - Quality Early Years Teachers

• 3500 extra Early Years Centres by 2010

• Extending free early years education to 20 hours per week

• Investment in Rural Children's Centres and rural satellite centres

• Cutting class sizes to 20 in Key Stage 1 and 25 at Key Stage 2; giving teacher more time with your child

• Scrapping SATs at 7 - Testing for Purpose not Government Statistics

Development Stage (7-14) Challenging failure - Creating opportunity

•Scrapping SATs at 11 - Testing for purpose

• Wrap around care from 8am to 6pm

• Cutting junior class sizes to 25; 21,000 extra teachers

• A single joined-up admissions system for secondary schools, at a local level

• Teachers qualified in core subjects

Specialist Stage (14-19); Flexible solutions for individual needs

• Tomlinson - fundamentally reforming the secondary curriculum with courses of study that both stretch the most able and remain relevant to those who struggle with basic skills with a core literacy, numeracy and ICT requirement and business at the heart of the vocational curriculum

• Teachers qualified in core subjects

• A commitment to make funding fair: closing the course funding gap between school 6th forms and colleges.

• Investing in a Building Colleges for the Future Programme - implementing plans to invest in modern high quality college facilities

Post 19

• Free tuition for all adults who do not have a first Level 2 (GCSE or equivalent)

• Free tuition for all adults, aged 20-24, who do not have a first Level 3 (A-level or equivalent) qualification

Higher Education

• No top up fees, no fees, fair grants - a place at university based on ability to learn not ability to pay.