Here’s how the BBC reports Nick Clegg’s speech today to the Association of School and College Leaders conference:
Head teachers have been asked to “raise their game” as part of a £2.5bn funding deal proposed by the Liberal Democrats. Party leader Nick Clegg called on schools to reinvent the curriculum, raise results and close the attainment between rich and poor.
He told the Association of School and College Leaders conference: “We will find you extra funding, even while elsewhere there are cuts.” In return, the “greatest expectations” will be placed upon them, he said. The Liberal Democrats are proposing a pupil premium through which an average of £2,500 would be attached to each pupil from disadvantaged backgrounds and go directly to the school they attend.
Nick used his speech to attack the Conservatives for pledging to help poorer pupils without allocating any funding to pay for it. As Lib Dem Voice noted on Thursday, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimate that the Tories’ preferred scheme could lead to budget cuts in excess of 10% for one-in-ten schools. Nick also accused the Government of ‘not funding, but buying’ schools.
Here’s Nick’s speech:
Today, I ask our schools and colleges to sign up to a deal with the Liberal Democrats: We will give you everything we can. We will find you extra funding, even while elsewhere there are cuts. We will give a level of freedom you haven’t known for decades. But, in return, we will place the greatest expectations on you any government ever has.
“One – we will expect you to transform the curriculum, so that it is rich, relevant, and stretches the brightest pupils while elevating those who struggle. Two – we will be much more ambitious about the number of young men and women leaving school with good results. Three – we will expect you to close the gap between poorer children and their wealthier classmates. A gap which entrenches inequality in Britain today.
“That deal is a new settlement for schools and government. Once it is in place we will get on with governing, you will get on with teaching, and children will benefit most of all. Let’s take our side of the bargain first. We are proposing an extra investment of £2.5bn for our schools. Around an extra £2,500 will be allocated for each pupil in receipt of free school meals. Raising the amount allocated for the poorest children to levels spent per pupil in fee-paying schools.
“The budgets of schools with similar catchments, but in different parts of the country, can vary wildly. Our Pupil Premium ensures every school taking a child from a disadvantaged background, no matter where it is, gets extra money to provide extra support.
“Money you can spend as you see fit – perhaps to cut class sizes, provide extra one-to-one tuition, evening or weekend classes. It would be up to you.
“Unlike the Conservatives, who have promised money to help poorer pupils without actually allocating a single penny to pay for it, we want to give schools certainty about the resources they can expect.
“So, to be absolutely clear: our Pupil Premium is new money. As the IFS pointed out earlier this week, unless a Pupil Premium is funded with extra cash, many schools – particularly secondaries – will suffer significant budget cuts.
“Labour didn’t fund schools, they bought schools. The price of unprecedented investment was untrammelled control.
“So, more freedom, more funding, that is our side of the bargain. What about yours? We will give you money, we will cut the reins, but our expectations on you will be high. We will expect you to reinvent the curriculum so it is broad and relevant. We will expect you to increase the number of children achieving good results. We will expect you to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers.
“I am tired of the buck passing that dominates the debate over education in this country. When pupils do badly, government blames schools, schools blame government, and parents are left watching endless finger-pointing that does nothing to help their children.
“We want to make Britain a place where it is no longer possible, on a pupil’s first day of school, to predict how well they’ll do simply by asking them how much their parents earn.
“So, a deal between government and schools: Money and freedom in return for high expectations and more ambition.”
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4 Comments
We will expect you to reinvent the curriculum so it is broad and relevant.
How? Individual schools do not write the curriculum. What is meant by “relevant”? Do Mr Clegg or the schools knowo what is “relevant”? As a university lecturer who has to take on the products of our schools, one of my greatest despairs is that ignorance – not just of the pupils but of the teachers and the politicians – means the students are given much that is useless because it is wrongly thought to be “relevant” (e.g. much that goes under the name of “Information Technology” qualifications, and turn down much that is useful because they wrongly think it is “irrelevant” (e.g. much of mathematics).
We will expect you to increase the number of children achieving good results.
By the usual means – dumbing down? Or will Mr Clegg change all those social factors outside schools that are really the cause of these problems?
We will expect you to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers
Sorry, Mr Clegg, making the poor richer is YOUR job as a politician, the schools can’t do it.
I despair, I really do.
Matthew,
Am I not right in thinking that Lib Dem policy is to give schools greater control of the curriculum? So Nick’s point makes perfect sense in the context of what we would expect if our education policy were implemented.
Nick Clegg’s demands do seem rather sweeping, considering he is offering an increase of about 3% in the education budget – compared with an increase over the past decade of more than 50% in real terms!
Yes, giving schools greater control of the curriculum is one thing. But Clegg here is attaching to that requirements expressed in a tone which comes across almost as bullying that they achieve things which they alone are simply not equipped to achieve. As a result, he comes across as the sort of hectoring control-freak target setter we hate when we see it it New Labour, and the kind of arrogant upper-class twit who thinks anyone in public service is evil minded and cares nothing for the service, so must be forced by threats to do their job, that we hate when we see it in the Conservatives.
Behind what Clegg is saying here is the idea that schools don’t really care for their pupils and don’t want the best for them, and in fact teachers have a easy stress-free life. So what is needed is bully Clegg standing over them saying “we give you a bit more money and freedom, but with these strings attached, and if you don’t do what we want you to do, you’re in trouble”. And what he wants them to do is solve problems whose roots go way beyond what happens in schools. If I were a teacher reading this stuff, I’d feel insulted and I’d want to say rude things to Clegg. I’d say “How DARE this man accuse me of lacking in ambition or expecations for the children I teach?”.
I am saying this honestly, as someone who works in education, what Clegg is saying here comes across very badly. It does a come across to me as someone who is basically clueless about the real issue facing teachers, but wants to look good by adopting this tough-boy image. No doubt this tough-boy image, with all this “we will expect”, “be more ambitious”, “cut the deal”, “tired of buck passing”, “smell the coffee” stuff works well in public school debating societies, or when public schoolkids get a bit older and are all thrusting bankers and ad-men. But when I read it, it still drums up in my mind, the pompous teenager from a very privileged background who thinks he knows oh so much better than the proles how the proles should run their lives – but he doesn’t because he’s never been there.
The weird thing is that I think Clegg didn’t mean it this way. It’s once again him showing that fatal tendency to act tough in a way that just makes him look like a softie trying to act tough. Consequence is he wins neither way.