Collins promises 600,000 extra school places
The Conservatives would fund 600,000 extra school places to allow the best schools to expand and new ones to start up, Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins said today.
Under the £15 billion programme, parents would be allowed to select where their children were educated.
Speaking to the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, Mr Collins said the choice offered to parents today was “simply not good enough” as they depend on how wealthy they were or where they lived.
The Conservatives would fix this by introducing a bill legislating for the right to choose, and removing the surplus place rule that he said stopped “good” schools from expanding or new schools from starting.
He promised to fund 600,000 extra school places “to make choice a reality”. Every school would be grant-maintained – because “freedom works” he asserted.
He warned that not every parent would instantly get their first choice, but said thousands of parents would benefit soon: “By letting new providers in and by letting good schools expand, we can pledge that 100,000 extra parents will get their first choice by 2010.”
The Conservatives would spend an extra £15 billion per year more than Labour had promised to spend, he added.
They would also introduce a wide-ranging teacher protection bill to give teachers immunity from prosecution and protection from “pernicious allegations”.
Mr Collins insisted the Conservatives’ policies would help small communities wanting to keep their schools open, and that they would allow funds to go to alternative schools such as the Leicester Islamic Academy, which he said currently received no government support.
He vowed to abolish the university access regulator, which he said had been “set up to punish universities who admit middle-class students”.
“Under the Conservatives, the best universities will be for the most able students, wherever they come from,” he added.
