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MENDING OUR BROKEN SOCIETY

This week, we’re focusing on our party’s central task: to mend our broken society. The crime, the disorder, the drug addiction, the alcohol abuse, the family breakdown, the entrenched poverty, the educational failure, the sink estates – we can’t go on like this. We need change to put our country back on its feet.

To mend our broken society, four areas of policy will be subject to our unremitting focus: fixing the criminal justice system, school reform, strengthening families and stimulating social action in our communities.

Today, we’re publishing our plans for one of those reform priorities: schools.

By raising standards, improving discipline, increasing choice, and getting the best people into teaching, we will make sure that the poorest children get the best education, not the worst. Today, we are announcing plans to fast-track professionals into teaching to ensure the best possible teachers are in the classroom. It’s time we made our teaching the best. That’s why we’re committed to a comprehensive programme of reform to elevate the status of teaching in our country. We want to make it the noble profession – the career path that attracts the best brains, is well-rewarded and commands the most respect.

We will:

·         1) raise the entry requirement for taxpayer-funded primary school teacher training from a C grade in English and Maths GCSE to a B;

·         2) require graduates to have at least a 2:2 in their degree in order to qualify for state-funded training;

·         3) pay the student loan repayments for top maths and science graduates for as long as they remain teachers;

·         4) expand Teach First and introduce two new programmes – Teach Now and Troops to Teachers – to get experienced, high-quality people into the profession;

·         4) give all headteachers the power to pay good teachers more.

18th January 2010