Kent Tories Must Change Howard's School Plans

9.33.32am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 16th Jul 2004

Cllr Trudy Dean is calling on KCC's Conservatives to tell Michael Howard that Conservative plans for Education are unworkable

County Councillor Trudy Dean today challenged Kent Conservatives to get to work to persuade Michael Howard to change his party's plans for schools.

If the Conservatives win the next General Election, each school will choose which pupils to admit, without having to take into account how near they live to the school. Increased school independence would also mean that Whitehall, rather than Kent County Council, would decide how much money each of the thousands of schools in the country will receive. Local schools would no longer serve local people. Parents who have the time and money to get their child to any popular school will get a wider choice. The rest will be left with little or no choice at all.

Trudy said, "Our County schools have been here before. We saw in the 1990's the competition, feuding and bitterness between schools and teachers created by the growth of independent Grant Maintained Schools which also chose their own pupils. The scars are still healing. I know that Kent County Council Conservatives do not support Mr Howard's plans, and I urge them to press him to dump these damaging policies."