Ruth Alexander
speaker
4,250 appearances
120 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2011
last heard Aug 2018
Ruth Alexander’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, at first glance, Eddie, it's hard to tell because the Lib Dems, the Conservatives and Labour have all seemingly made the same promise about education in England to protect it from any cuts.
But if you listen carefully, they all mean something different by that.
Nick Clegg said today that the Lib Dems would protect spending per pupil in real terms from nursery age to 19-year-olds.
The per-head spending would rise in line with inflation until 2017-18 and then in line with economic growth beyond that.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives say they'd protect cash spending per pupil for 5- to 16-year-olds.
And Labour say they'd protect the entire education budget, i.e.
right through the age range, plus teacher training and some other elements.
UKIP's manifesto, of course, also out today...
They've made some promises on education, like they'd give secondaries the freedom to become grammar schools, but they've not said much about spending commitments.
Well, you have to consider a few different things that are going to be going on.
Pupil numbers are expected to go up 7% over the next five years because of birth rate and immigration.
Labour's plan doesn't take that into account, but the Conservative promise to protect cash funding per pupil does.
It implies a 7% cash increase.
But inflation is also forecast to go up 7%, something that would erode the value of that cash spending per pupil.
Now, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the best way to look at this, then, is that the Conservatives are effectively promising to protect the school's budget in real terms, which is what Labour's promising to do, to the education budget, which is larger.
Now, the Liberal Democrat plan is to protect per-pupil spending for 2 to 19-year-olds.
So they'd raise it in line with inflation for the first three years and then in line with economic growth thereafter, all of which means that their promise to protect education is the most generous of all.
Exactly.
There is another party actually promising to spend much more on education, and that's the Greens.
They're promising all sorts, not least nutritious and, you know, probably organic free school meals for all.
Showing 441–460 of 4,250 · page 23 of 213
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