Wednesday 28 April 2010

Green Party on education

I am a school governor at Alfred Sutton School and so have a good working knowledge of education in Reading. A particular problem in the area is the over subscription of some schools. We think every child should be able to attend a good local school and the fact that some children have to travel a long distance to get to school is wrong. In line with this, we would remove the charitable status of all public and grammar schools and offer state funding to them so they will be accessible to all children in the local area. We would also fast track extra places at "under pressure" primary schools and support further investigation into a new secondary school for east Reading.

Nationally, we would work towards smaller class sizes, abolishing SATs and a more flexible national curriculum.

The Green Party opposes City Academies and Trust Schools as we believe that schools should be governed in the interests of children and their parents, not through private individuals or businesses.

Finally, we would abolish tuition and top-up fees, which are currently crippling graduates with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. The Green Party supports grants not loans, providing a basic income sufficient for needs while in full time education. Fair is worth fighting for!

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