Labour has delivered more than many realise in secondary education. But because of problems in school funding and continued difficulties with school choice in urban areas, such gains are too often obscured. Despite problems in 2002, spending per pupil is £1,000 more after inflation than in 1997. There are many more computers in secondary schools, and we are in the middle of the biggest school capital programme for decades. There are also more teachers than for 25 years.
But Labour rightly emphasises both outputs and inputs. Some encouraging gains have been made in inner-city areas and in turning around failing schools, helping those young people who need improvements most. The gap between private and state schools has narrowed, for example. Nearly 47,000 more pupils gain five good GCSEs every year in state schools than would have done so had 1997 achievement levels been maintained; just 755 extra pupils do so in fee-paying schools.
Targets may have a bad name. And some targets were well-intentioned, but too bureaucratic. However, two targets have had significant successes. The first aimed to help failing schools improve while insisting they do so within two years. Despite the recent toughening of the inspection rules, there were 46 percent fewer failing schools in 2003 than in 1997.
The second target was that by 2006, no school should have fewer than 25 percent of pupils gaining five good GCSEs. Good heads know that a core of success encourages wider improvements. The number of schools in the target group fell from 436 in 2000 to 253 last year. Coupled with a big expansion in specialist schools and new urban city academies, these are real signs that Labour is delivering more than the media sometimes allows, or many voters realise. Furthermore, the new ‘key stage three’ strategies, designed to improve teaching for eleven to fourteen year-olds, are already improving teaching and test results.
However, big challenges remain for a third term. The first relates to fourteen to nineteen education. Former chief schools inspector Mike Tomlinson is developing plans to improve vocational education and replace A-levels and GCSEs with a new diploma system, where sixth formers would have to continue studying English and maths, as well as their specialist subjects.
I hope the government uses the opportunity to develop a full-scale baccalaureate, where all sixth formers continue to study a range of different subjects in the sixth form, including at least one foreign language and science. And much more needs to be done to improve the completion rates and quality of apprenticeships if the 48 percent of sixteen year-olds who currently don’t get five good GCSEs are to stay in education and training.
The second big challenge lies in improving parental choice, particularly in the cities. Every urban parent should have a real choice of local specialist colleges. But two reforms could make this choice a reality, especially for the poorest. First, comprehensive banding, where schools take a genuinely mixed ability intake of pupils, needs to expand. And second, school transport needs radical reform so that pupils attending the specialist school that is right for them have subsidised school buses.
A third challenge relates to funding. An opportunity was missed in 2002 to separate school funding from local education authority funds. Schools should get their money direct, while LEAs should have a separate pot for services like special needs, pupil referral units and truancy prevention. Funding reform could bring much more transparency – and voters might even see just how their extra billions are being used in schools.
Too many young people still don’t achieve their full potential. And system-wide reforms take time to deliver. But there is encouraging evidence that steps that Labour has taken over the last five years are beginning to bear fruit. A third term would ensure that these reforms realise their full potential.