Education, Careers & Professional News
Blair: Education Is Our Number One Priority
Tony Blair has insisted that education will remain Labours number one priority if it is re-elected to power.
Speaking at a press conference this morning alongside education secretary Ruth Kelly, the prime minister said: Education was the number one priority in 1997 and 2001. It is the number one priority now. The reality is if you want good schools, you have to vote for them.
Mr Blair said education was the root to future economic success and, with the growth of China and India, it was more important than ever that Britain made the most of the greatest natural resource of all, the brain power of people.
A small country, we are the fourth largest economy in the world, he said.
An extraordinary achievement. We have to understand that only by maintaining and improving standards in education for all will we be able to maintain and improve our strength in the world economy.
He told reporters at a school in Kennington, south London, that a re-elected Labour government would continue to reform and invest in education and claimed the Tories plans for a pupils passport would take investment out of the state sector.
Ms Kelly added that one of the keys to educational success was new buildings, which transform the feel of our schools and make parents proud to send their children to school.
She highlighted the Budgets promise of a mass refurbishment and rebuilding programme for the nations schools, with a 15-year programme of rebuilding or refurbishing 50 per cent of all primary schools and all of the secondary school estate.
But the Conservatives are not being silent on education either. Controversial former head of Ofsted Chris Woodhouse is campaigning with Conservative candidates today, and shadow education secretary Tim Collins said that truancy was out of control.
According to Conservative figures, obtained from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), 28,000 teaching hours were lost to truancy last year - an 11 per cent increase on the year before.
Mr Collins said: Labour promised to cut truancy by a third. All talk. After countless initiatives and millions of pounds spent, the number of pupils truanting is actually up by a third.
We will not turn a blind eye to this problem. The next Conservative government will give head teachers and their professional colleagues the responsibility and resources to draw up challenging lessons and courses that will engage children of all ages and abilities.