Teachers’ verdicts on the three parties’ education policies

pete quentin, 19 September 2008

Whilst the Liberal Democrats are having to work hard for coverage of their policy proposals this week, amidst a storm of financial and political crises, their education policies do appear to have caught the attention of teachers, according to a Times Education Supplement (TES) poll published today, writes Anastasia de Waal.

The TES’s survey of 5,832 teachers shows that it is the Liberal Democrats’ education policies which are most ‘in tune’ with teachers’ views on education. Notably, the Conservatives’ policies are the second most popular with teachers, whilst Labour seem to be the least in tune by a significant margin. (Labour’s only comparatively popular policy is the introduction of the 14-19 Diploma as an alternative to A-levels).
As the TES notes, the importance of each party’s education policies amongst teachers is strong: 9 in 10 of the teachers surveyed said that each party’s education policies affected which party they would vote for in the next general election. With teachers one of the largest groups of professionals in the country, their views are clearly not to be sniffed at, generally.
The TES carried out the poll of teachers’ views by choosing five of the three main political parties’ most popular policies. The winning party policy overall was the Conservative proposal to grant teachers total anonymity when they faced legal allegations. Not all other Conservative policies were found to be popular, however. No-notice Ofsted inspections and rolling-out large numbers of smaller academies, for example, were highly unpopular with teachers, as was the proposal to set all academic subject classes by ability.
The other two most popular policies amongst the teachers polled by the TES are both proposed by the Liberal Democrats. The first is getting rid of Key Stage 3 Sats (for 14 year-olds) and the second is introducing a substantial ‘pupil premium’ for disadvantaged pupils. Other popular policies from the Liberal Democrats include the establishment of an independent body to be called the ‘Educational Standards Authority’, to replace the government controlled Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and abolishing F and G GCSE grades. Not all Liberal Democrat proposals were popular with teachers in the poll however: little support was shown for the Lib-Dems’ ‘free schools’ whereby independent schools, parents and charities are able to join in maintained school provision, Swedish style. Amongst Labour’s least popular policies, according to the poll, is the threat of school closure for secondaries not achieving the A*-C GCSE benchmark and their proposal to let Academies take over feeder primary schools was also not well-received in the survey.