However history describes this general election, it is unlikely to say education has been at its core. All the parties have given it a turn on the “grid” but that has so far failed to ignite public debate. I doubt it indicates a lack of interest from politicians or the public, and there are certainly policy differences that merit debate. I suspect it reflects a moment in time when the political focus within the schools agenda is changing and new ideas are yet to capture the public’s imagination.
The big education policies of recent elections are taking a back seat. Take the long-running debate about who runs schools. The Conservative grant-maintained schools of the 80s opened up differences of opinion and a trail of change that dominated the agenda for most of the next 25 years – school autonomy and the power of heads; governance and the role of local authorities.
So-called school autonomy was a flagship policy in the last Conservative manifesto and led to Michael Gove’s reforms. His first education bill introduced stand-alone academies with good and outstanding schools being given incentives to convert. These were to be the ultimate autonomous schools, free from local and national interference and able to employ unqualified staff and move away from the national curriculum.
However, five years later and with 279 – one in seven – of these schools judged by Ofsted to require outside intervention, the focus of the debate has shifted from whether or not a nation of independent schools is the ideal, to whether we need something more. So the new battle of ideas is how to rebuild the fabric of a school system that has been seriously fragmented and the new thinking is about how schools can be both independent and part of a wider schools network.
This debate has been led by Labour – it is the focus of the Blunkett report, the party’s main schools policy document produced in opposition – and the Conservatives have grudgingly moved on to this ground with the appointment of school commissioners. Important though this may be, it doesn’t have the political sex appeal of the debate around autonomy – “Freedom for heads”, or “Let parents run schools”, sparked much media and public interest. “Let schools help one another” isn’t going to appeal so much to headline writers.
The second change that may be contributing to education’s lower profile is the way in which political parties talk about their policies on funding it. Gone are the days when a party spokesperson announced pots of funding for specific initiatives. With money devolved to schools, the move away from ring-fenced funding denies politicians the ability to focus the debate by tying money to an initiative that highlights a key policy.
Of course, the overall level of funding is a key election issue but it is one bite of the publicity cherry. Health has shown how announcing resources for more midwives or to extend GPs’ opening hours focuses the media spotlight – but £1m for books or double that for computers is no longer a decision for politicians to make.
New policies have not caught the public imagination. The Conservatives led, bizarrely, on a plan to make 11-year-olds resit their Sats if they didn’t reach the expected standards. Not only is this questionable educationally, it fails to recognise the opinion that thinks children are already tested too much.
Labour has led on vocational and skills education, which hasn’t fired much debate either. It is notoriously difficult to get media coverage for this agenda and, as recent research shows, while most parents think vocational education is important, it is not something they would choose for their own child. So what is genuinely a big idea and a significant change of priority will reach election day without the attention it merits.
I don’t know whether education will rise up the election agenda in the next 10 days, but whoever is sitting in the Department for Education after the votes are counted will still find themselves in charge of one of the most important areas of policy – and the debate will resume.
