Sean Coughlan, BBC News education reporter, has produced a thorough and interesting analysis of the actions of the Blair government on Education. It is worth a read.
In particular, he highlights the resources which have been poured into education:
Between 1997 and the current academic year, the core "per pupil" funding has risen by 48% in real terms - or £1,450 more per year per child. By the end of next year, it will be a 55% increase.
There are now about 35,000 more teachers than in 1997 - reducing pupil-teacher ratios and class sizes in primary and secondary. Teachers' pay has risen by 18% in real terms, and heads have had a pay hike of 27%.
Another quiet revolution has been the huge increase in support workers, such as teaching assistants - up by 172,000. To put it into context, that's like recruiting an additional workforce that is bigger than the army, navy and air force put together.
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Primary school classroom assistants are the best thing to be done in education for a long time...
ReplyDeleteOf course, they've been viscerally opposed by most of the unions because they may threaten teacher's power, but for the children and their prospects they are a great thing...
One of the few things I'll credit the Blair government with...
Fair point. Although they probably didn't follow up on it, wasn't it a Major government idea to have a "mum's army" which presumably was a sort of precursor to the classroom assistant's initiative?
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