Call to Scrap National Curriculum
The Liberal Democrats have unveiled proposals to scrap the national curriculum and "end the educational apartheid" between rich and poor pupils.Schools spokesman David Laws told delegates at the Lib Dem Bournemouth conference that the 635-page national curriculum should "go in the shredder".
And calling on his party to "deliver a blistering defence of freedom in education", he said an Education Freedom Act would "give power back to schools", local government and parents.
The curriculum should be replaced with something similar to "the 21 pages that seem to do the job in places like Sweden", Laws said.
"This government's education strategy has become so authoritarian that it is beyond parody," he added.
"The Whitehall screwdriver reaches down ever further into every school in the land."
The party is also proposing a £2.5bn "pupil premium", which involves allocating funding to poorer children and paying it directly to their school.
According to Laws, that will be enough to bring the funding of a million poor pupils to the average levels found in private schools.
"From the poshest public schools to the toughest maintained schools, there is a new consensus that standardisation and centralisation just don't work," he said.
"What is needed is more independence, more real freedom for schools."
Comment by Guest 13th November 2008
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