The past couple of months have seen the initial education and skills battle lines being drawn for the 2015 General Election:
The most surprising announcement was July’s Cabinet reshuffle in which Michael Gove was replaced as Secretary of State for Education by the relatively unknown former Treasury minister and Minister for Women Nicky Morgan (view her political background and voting record here).
Is this a move to increase popularity of the role of the Education Secretary, as a recent ipsos MORI poll found Michael Gove to be one of the least popular politicians in the UK, or is it part of an attempt to get more women into a homogenous Cabinet? There’s probably a degree of truth in both arguments…
Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats fired their opening election salvo in June, pledging that in their manifesto to protect education spending from ‘Cradle to College’.
This ‘would mean an extra £10bn of education spending would be protected based on this financial year’, protection to education funding for 2 to 19 year olds, as currently only education spending until age 16 is protected.
Although this could be a welcome move to protect funding for this key age group, my concern is that to pay for this, a Liberal Democrat government would have to make further (additional) cuts elsewhere – most likely in 19+ funding.
Labour were next, announcing proposals to abolish JobSeekers Allowance (JSA) for 18 to 21-year olds, replacing it with a means-tested ‘youth allowance’ welfare payment, dependent upon a young person undertaking skills training up to level 3.
Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband announced the measure at the launch of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)’s ‘Condition of Britain’ report, stating ‘Britain’s young people who don’t have the skills they need for work should be in training not on benefits’
In response, the (now former) Conservative Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock accused the Labour party of copying Conservative thinking – tweeting Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves the following:
Labour have in turn accused the Conservatives of playing ‘catch up’ with their ‘Technical Baccalaureate’ (TechBacc) roll out, after only 7 schools and colleges were revealed to be planning to run courses that would count towards the new performance measure.
Shadow Junior Education Minister Rushanara Ali accused the government as the then Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg first announced plans for a ‘Tech Bacc’ qualification back in 2012.
Matthew Hancock responded for the Conservatives by stating that the ‘7 schools and colleges will lead the way in teaching a combination of demanding technical skills, maths and independent research’ and the ‘TechBacc will provide high-quality technical training, giving Britain the skilled and responsive workforce it needs to compete, and give all young people the opportunity to reach their potential’.
All of this proves the jockeying for a clear ideological position by the political parties has started. Once their election manifestos are finalised and published later this year, we’ll get a fuller picture of the Education and Skill policies of the different parties, and start to anticipate the impact of these on the sector.
