The manifestos for all the major parties have recently been released ahead of the General Election on 7 May.

We’ve rounded up the key points on education from each party to summarise their pledges. However, with polls suggesting that this election is going to be extremely close, coalition (or supply and confidence) relationships between parties are likely, which means much of the following could be up for negotiation.

Conservatives

Children & Schools:

• 30 hours a week of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds, doubling existing provision.
• If children do not reach the required standards in their English and maths exams at the end of primary school, they will resit them at the start of secondary school, "to make sure no pupil is left behind."
• 500 more free schools, and more University Technical Colleges in "every city."
• Turn every failing and coasting secondary school into an academy and deliver free schools for parents and communities that want them.

Apprenticeships & Further Education:

• Support 3 million new Apprenticeships and make sure there is no cap on university places.
• Replace the Jobseeker’s Allowance for 18-21 year-olds with a Youth Allowance that will be time-limited to six months, after which young people will have to take an Apprenticeship, a Traineeship, or do daily community work for their welfare payments.
• Continue to work on Further Education through a network of National Colleges, which will provide specialist higher-level vocational training in sectors critical to economic growth.
• Help teachers to make Britain the best country in the world for developing maths, engineering, science and computing skills.

Labour

Children & Schools:

• Ensure all teachers in state schools are qualified, and require private schools to partner with a school, or number of schools, in the state sector in order to keep receiving state subsidiaries.
• Introduce compulsory, age-appropriate sex and relationships education, encourage character education and work to end homophobic bullying.
• All secondary school and college pupils will get guaranteed face-to-face advice from trained careers advisers, beginning at the age of 11. Integrated advice will ensure teenagers learn about high quality apprenticeships and technical degrees as well as traditional academic routes into universities. Schools will be held to account for the programmes they offer.
• Reverse the decision to scrap compulsory work experience for 14 to 16-year-olds.

Apprenticeships & Further Education:

• Offer a “gold standard” Technical Baccalaureate or an Apprenticeship for every school leaver.
• Raise standards and increase opportunities for all young people, ensuring they get the dedicated advice they need for a successful transition from school and college to career.
• A promise of 80,000 new Apprenticeships every year and pledges to support the “forgotten 50%” who don’t go to university.
• Labour have pledged to “protect the entire education budget,” including post-16 education.

Liberal Democrats

Children & Schools:

• Introduce a minimum curriculum entitlement – a slimmed down  core national curriculum which “will include Personal, Social and Health Education:a ‘curriculum for life’ including financial literacy, first aid and emergency lifesaving skills, citizenship, and age-appropriate sex and relationship education.”
• Complete the introduction of reformed GCSEs, while continuing to oppose Conservative plans for a return to the old O-level/CSE divide.
• Promote the take up of STEM subjects in schools, retain coding on the National Curriculum and encourage entrepreneurship at all levels.
• Set a clear ambition for all children to achieve a good grasp of maths and English, aiming to eradicate child illiteracy and innumeracy by 2025.

Apprenticeships & Further Education:

• Extend the current UK budget protection for education to include early years and 16-19 provision.
• Increase the number of Apprenticeships and improve their quality, extending the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers for the remainder of the next Parliament, delivering 200,000 grants to employers and expanding the number of degree-equivalent Higher Apprenticeships.
• Work to improve the quality of vocational education, including skills for entrepreneurship and self-employment, and improve careers advice in schools and colleges.
• Identify and seek to solve skills gaps like the lack of advanced technicians by expanding higher vocational training such as foundation degrees, Higher National Diplomas, Higher National Certificates and Higher Apprenticeships, as well as supporting growth in the creative industries, including video gaming.

Green Party

Children & Schools:

• Make personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) a compulsory part of the school curriculum.
• Restore education current and capital funding to 2010 levels in real terms and distribute it among local authorities, reflecting the core costs of education, pupil needs and quality of existing school buildings.
• Integrate academies and free schools into the local authority system, as well as removing charitable status from private schools with a view to absorbing them into the state system and ensure no schools are run for profit.
• Abolish SATS and league tables, and evaluation of schools will be undertaken by parents, teachers and the local community, not Ofsted.

Apprenticeships & Further Education:

• Provide more training and work experience for young unemployed people through expanding Apprenticeships – specifically, provide an apprenticeship to all qualified young people aged 16-25 who want one.
• A ‘coherent’ 16-19 qualifications framework will be introduced, ‘allowing a real choice of academic and vocational areas.’
• The party will oppose the privatisation of further education and return further education colleges to the democratic control of local government.
• The further education sector will be provided with £1.5bn a year extra funding.

UKIP

Children & Schools:

• Continue to fund the current childcare offer of fifteen hours a week of free childcare at a nursery, preschool, or for a child-minder.
• Abolish Key Stage 1 SATs, set at the age of seven.
• Push for a range of different types of school, including grammar, vocational, technical and specialist secondary schools within a geographical area. Ultimately, UKIP “wants to see a grammar school in every town.”
• As well as allowing existing schools to become grammar schools, UKIP will allow other establishments to become vocational schools or colleges similar to those promoted in Germany and The Netherlands, so pupils develop practical skills

Apprenticeships & Further Education:

• Introduce an option for students to take an Apprenticeship qualification instead of four non-core GCSEs. Students can then continue their apprenticeships past the age of 16, working with certified professionals qualified to grade their progress.
• Abolish the AS level exam as a stepping stone to a full ‘A’ level, while retaining it as a standalone qualification in its own right for those who choose to approach it as such.
• Scrap the target of 50% of school leavers going to university.
• Remove tuition fees for students taking approved degrees in science, medicine, technology, engineering and maths.

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