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Education
'gulf' warning
FORMER Downing Street adviser Fiona Millar last night
(Wednesday) predicted a bleak future for schools and the Labour
party as MPs voted in favour of the government’s education
reforms.
As 51 Labour rebels – including Holborn and St Pancras
MP Frank Dobson – were overwhelmed in a House of Commons
vote last night on the government’s proposed shake-up of
education, Ms Millar was a guest speaker at the Heath Library
in Keat’s Grove, Hampstead.
She said that the Education Bill in its current form represented
a “missed opportunity”.
Ms Millar, who lives in Gospel Oak with partner Alastair Campbell,
the former Labour spin chief, renewed her warning that changes
will lead to a gulf between good and bad schools.
She is among critics who say new trust schools and city academies
and the shift in power away from local authorities will lead
to unfair pupil selection.
Ms Millar told the library audience last night (Wednesday):
“This is an important day – the bill has gone through
with the support of the Tories.
“How can a Labour government that had a landslide victory
in 1997 pledging against this policy now be relying on Conservative
support to get it through? The government and the Tories want
to dismantle state providers of education and replace them with
alternative providers of education.
“They believe local authorities are a dead hand. This has
profound consequences. It will lead to a bigger gap between
the best and worst and we all know which children will end up
suffering.”
The bill was passed by 458 to 115 votes. |
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