The Liberal Democrats policies announced this week on education would have a great effect on school in Southampton. Currently under a Labour government councils across the country are forced to keep class sizes at around 30 pupils per class, under Liberal Democrat plans extra funding would be made available to local authorities to make average class sizes for Infant school 20 pupils per class and for junior school 25 pupils per class.
The main points of the policy for Infant and Junior school aged children :
This last point contrasts strongly with the current Labour governments approach, which means that :-
Therefore extra funding to have lower class sizes in this Labour government world would have to come from council tax payer. This would lead to big council rises and big council tax rises would be capped by the same Labour government. Therefore in is not possible for any local education authority of any political colour in the country to follow any other policy on class sizes than the governments because of this funding issue.
The Labour Party argue that this is the policy because they wish to spend tax payers money effectively and efficiently, but Liberal Democrats believe that there are few more effectively ways to spend tax payers money than on children’s education. The better the child’s start in life the better that person chances of a good adult life are.
Therefore :-
David Goodall Southampton Itchen’s Parliamentary candidate said that :-
“At time when the class sizes our naturally reducing due to the birth rate I find it incredible that it’s Labour’s policy to keep class sizes high”
“Early years education has been shown to be the most important to give children a flying start, which is why a Liberal Democrat government would support local councils to reduce class sizes and not force councils to increase them”