A school building. Flickr/Alan Levine. Some rights reservedEducation, education, education. As a teacher, I'm listening hard for manifesto pledges that will make a difference when votes are cast tomorrow, but, as each rolls in, there is still not enough real debate of how we want to improve schools in this country. Where will we be in 2021?
I don't want to sound too miserable, but if tomorrow brings a Tory government with a workable majority, as seems most likely, the answer seems to be ‘more of the same’. Perhaps this explains why 75% of teachers in a recent TES survey said that they didn't think education would improve post-election.
If May is re-elected, I'm expecting the same grammar school debate that completely misses the point. May’s government may put a bit more money in, but it won't be enough. Technology and mental health interventions are on the agenda, which is positive, but outcomes are unpredictable. In the meantime, the new Conservative Secretary of State for Education is likely to be ‘Gove Lite’ and can be expected to keep on mucking about with free schools and academies, things which distract from the problems being faced in classrooms across the country and don't really make any tangible and whole-scale difference anyway.
