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Respect policies Education
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All materials published and promoted by L Smith, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU
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Respect believes that education is a basic right that should be available to all, irrespective of social background or financial means.
Yet New Labour has continued the attack on comprehensive education that was started by the Tories under Thatcher. The result is a two-tier education system segregating young people into 'academic' and 'vocational' pathways, benefiting the well-off but condemning countless others to the low-wage economy.
The vision of equality through a fully-funded comprehensive education system from nursery education through primary and secondary school and through university and adult education has never been realised. It is those from working-class
backgrounds who are most disadvantaged.
Schools are dominated by a regime of testing, league tables and privatised inspections which distorts education, enforces competition, stresses and selects children and young people and misleads parents.
Respect calls for the abolition of league tables and the current testing and inspection systems and its replacement by a rigorous system of school self-evaluation, overseen and supported by Local Authority inspectors and advisers answerable to parents and communities.
New Labour is opening up the whole education system to profit-hungry private companies, outsourcing national and local education services which should be publicly provided and managed. We also oppose the use of PFI to fund school capital programmes. We believe that the profit motive should have no place in education. Education is a public service, not a market or a business. It should be run according to the needs of the pupils and students, not on the basis of how much profit can be made.
Schools are being tied to business agendas through sponsorship of specialist schools, Academies, and the new Trust schools. We want to see an end to all business sponsorship of schools. We will bring City Academies into the local authority system. They are
lavishly funded at the expense of neighbouring schools. They are private schools in disguise, paid for by public money but run mostly by business entrepreneurs.
Respect stands for fully comprehensive state run education with all children in the same school where they are free to observe whatever faith, or none, they choose. This must be on the basis of equality between all faiths. The present obligation on schools to observe 'mainly Christian' acts of worship should be abolished.
Until that is achieved we are for equal treatment as far as faith schools are concerned. The overwhelming majority of faith schools are Christian schools and we oppose the discrimination currently practised against other faiths.
Life at university is increasingly dominated by the need to work in poverty pay jobs in order that students can maintain themselves without falling deeply into debt.
Thousands are forced to continue living at home as the only way to survive. Respect aims to break the cycle of inequality in the education system. We want to see an education system that will enable everyone to develop the knowledge, skills and personal qualities to understand the world, live in it, and help to change it for the better.
Today's education system is a barrier to this. Instead of challenging an unequal society it reproduces it, benefiting most those pupils and students from well-off families while failing to meet the needs of the majority, especially those from poorer working class backgrounds and many minority ethnic groups.
Instead of developing critical minds it encourages conformity and competitive individualism. Instead of being open to popular democratic decision-making at the local level, it is tightly controlled by central government and tied to the needs and
demands of employers.
RESPECT CALLS FOR:
> A fully comprehensive school system providing a common core curriculum for all until 18. End selection. Scrap SATs and other unnecessary tests.
> Education free at the point of use, from pre-school to FE, to university and adult learning.
> A radical reduction in class size.
> A qualified teacher for every class.
> Better pay for teachers and other education workers.
> An end to specialist school status, to Academies and to Trust schools.
> Restoration of local decision-making powers over admissions and new schools to elected local authorities, not government appointed bureaucrats.
> Free after-school clubs and play centres for all that need them.
> Full and part-time nursery and day-care places as a right, for all who want them.
> An end to charitable status and tax breaks for private schools.
> The abolition of tuition fees and student loans. Free education and a living grant for all further and higher education students.
> Free and life-long access for all to high quality vocational education and adult education.
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