The Liberal Democrat Manifesto 1997

The problem: This country's education has been underfunded and undermined by repeated shifts in policy. Standards are too low, especially in core skills such as reading and maths. Britain is too low in the world league tables.

Our commitment: Liberal Democrats will make education the next government's top priority. We will invest an additional £2 billion per year in education, funded by an extra 1p in the pound on the basic rate of income tax.
 
Our first priority is to:

• Give children the best start by providing high quality early years education for every 3 and 4 year-old child whose parents want it.

• Increase funding for books and equipment in schools. In the first year, we will double spending on books and equipment to overcome the effect of recent cuts.
• Reduce primary school class sizes so that within 5 years no child between 5 and 11 will need to be in a class of more than 30.
• Tackle the backlog of repair and maintenance to buildings with £500m additional investment over 5 years.
• Boost chances for all adults to improve their skills and get better qualifications.

• Give children the best start by providing high quality early years education for every 3 and 4 year-old child whose parents want it. This will be the first call on our £2 billion annual programme of extra investment in education.
• Promote high standards in early years education. We will set minimum standards for care, curriculum and premises. We will ensure that those in early years education are supervised by qualified staff.
• Provide choice in early years education. We will scrap the bureaucratic voucher scheme. We will ensure a variety of provision from a wide range of public, private and voluntary providers.
• Raising standards in schools. We will raise standards in schools, especially in literacy and numeracy, which are still far too low.

We will:

• Improve teaching standards. We will set up a General Teaching Council, charged with improving teaching standards and making teaching a profession to be proud of again. We will provide more opportunities for professional development and reward excellence in teaching. We will help poor teachers improve, but if they cannot, we will ensure they do not continue to teach.
• Encourage schools to succeed. We will strengthen the inspection system so that it helps schools and we will extend inspection to monitoring Local Education Authorities (LEAs).
• Strengthen discipline in schools. We will support teachers in maintaining discipline and provide them with the means to do so - for example, by providing better access to special referral units. We will require every school to develop a policy to tackle bullying and truancy. We will launch a national Truancy Watch scheme. We will oblige LEAs to fulfil their responsibilities to educate pupils excluded or suspended from school.
• Measure achievement in pupils and schools. We will give every pupil a Personal Record of Achievement which will enable them to build up a set of nationally accredited qualifications and record their other achievements. We will require schools to publish meaningful information on their standards, achievements and plans for the future.
• Improve the National Curriculum. We will replace the National Curriculum with a more focused and flexible Minimum Curriculum Entitlement. We will ensure that religious education provides pupils with an understanding of the major traditions of belief in this country.
• Boost literacy. We will establish special literacy programmes involving parents with teachers in a drive to ensure that 90 per cent of all pupils reach their expected reading age by 2005.

We will:

• Increase funding for books and equipment in schools. In the first year, we will double spending on books and equipment to overcome the effect of recent cuts. A typical primary school of 250 pupils will get an extra £16,000. A typical secondary school of 1,000 pupils will get an extra £110,000.
• Reduce primary school class sizes so that within 5 years no child between 5 and 11 will need to be in a class of more than 30.
• Tackle the backlog of repairs. We will invest an additional £500 million over 5 years in repairing crumbling and unsafe buildings.
• Support children with special needs. We will fully fund the implementation of the Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs.

A new partnership for schools
Involving parents in the education of their children and ensuring schools are supported by local communities are both essential to achieving higher standards and a better use of resources.

We will:

• Increase the role of parents in education. We will extend home/school/pupil links, develop home-school partnership arrangements and support parents with information and resources to help them help their child. We will require the schools inspection service to report on home-school partnerships as part of school inspections. We will promote school councils and guarantee automatic representation on governing bodies to staff and, where appropriate, students.
• Open up schools to the whole community. We will encourage schools to develop courses for parents, build links with local leisure organisations to open up school sports facilities to the community and work with local businesses to provide improved computer education.
• Give all schools more independence and allow them to develop their own styles and strengths. We will devolve as many powers as possible to schools and give them more control over their budgets. We will make new 'light touch' LEAs responsible for those functions that cannot be undertaken by individual schools on their own, such as coordination, planning and monitoring standards. We will bring grant-maintained schools and City Technology Colleges into this new framework and scrap the Funding Agency for Schools. Liberal Democrats are opposed to selection, but believe that decisions on this should be made by local communities through their local Councils and not by politicians at Westminster.
• Recognise the valuable role of church schools in the maintained sector. We will initiate a dialogue with all the major faiths about the role they wish to play in education in the future. Where any of the major faiths wish to establish publicly funded voluntary schools we will enable them to do so, provided that they enjoy substantial community support, offer acceptable programmes of study, provide equality of opportunity and are able to deliver the Minimum Curriculum Entitlement.
• Forge a new partnership with the independent sector. We will encourage independent schools to work with state schools. We will phase out the Assisted Places Scheme and use the money saved to enable LEAs, if they wish, to enter into local partnership schemes. These could include assisting the funding of pupils at independent schools. Pupils currently covered by the Assisted Places Scheme would, however, be protected until they finish their studies. We will require independent schools to offer the Minimum Curriculum Entitlement. We will extend charitable status to all schools without affecting total Council funding and maintain the VAT exemption on school fees.

Extending life-long learning
In the information age, education must be a life-long activity from which people can benefit anywhere and at any time, rather than being something that only happens in school.

We will:

• Widen access to further education. We will give every person an Individual Learning Account as the basis for life-long post-school education with contributions made by the state, individuals and employers. Our aim is that the state contribution will be at least equivalent to the cost of fees on approved courses. We will replace the Student Loans Scheme with a fair repayment scheme linked to salaries in later life. We oppose top-up fees for tuition. Our aim is to ensure that students on approved courses (including part-time courses) up to first degree level are treated equally.
• Promote flexible learning. We will create a higher standard credit-based system for all post-14 courses, including the current A-levels and degree courses. We will work with the private sector to link all schools to the Information Super Highway and ensure that they have the equipment and skills to take advantage of this.
• Promote training in the workplace. To support companies that invest in education and training, and to encourage others to do so, we will introduce a 2 per cent remissible levy on company payrolls. This would be deductible against the cost of providing accredited training or making contributions to the Individual Learning Account. Small businesses will be exempt. We will give Training and Enterprise Councils the leading role in forging local partnerships to meet youth training and employment needs.
• Expand training opportunities for young people. Our aim is to ensure that 16-19 year-olds receive the equivalent of at least 2 days a week education or on-the-job training.
• Boost chances for all adults to improve their skills and get better qualifications. We will ensure that all adults on approved courses or training have access to financial support, either through their Individual Learning Accounts or from their employer using our new remissible training levy.
• Improve the quality of tertiary courses. We will create a new Quality Council to ensure high standards and value for money in all post-16 education and training courses.
• Secure academic freedom. We will ensure the funding of university teaching and research, safeguard academic freedom and standards.