Labour Admitting Failure on Education

After 12 and half years can a Government who had as its mantra "Education, education, education" be allowed room for error over those at Primary School level? The answer has got to be no.

Yet this morning the Prime Minister and his School's Secretary are going to announce plans to guarantee extra tuition for primary pupils who fall behind. Considering Ed Balls is also calling for a debate with his opposite numbers does he really want to defend that Labour record and that election pledge after 13 years of Labour Government. Brave man.

So why after 12 and half years of Labour controlling the purse strings for most of the UK on education has our current crop of Primary School children been failed to this extent. In Scotland at least the reduction of class sizes in the early years was something that came in as part of a Lib Dem partnership, even it the SNP haven't managed to take it further there is a thrust in Scottish education to give our children the best start possible. The same is not true of England and possibly to an extent Wales.

The other news today that too many of our children are too slow to learn to talk may go part of the way to explaining it. The development of early vocal ability comes from the family of the child. In our society too many parents of young children don't have the time to sit down and spend time with their children to learn these key early skills. However, our education system should then be capable of picking up on these situations and make amends for them as soon after the child enters their doors as possible. Is that too much to ask?

I don't want to hear Brown and Balls using this other breaking news story on the same day as they will be announcing this education proposal as an excuse to get Labour off the hook for over 12 years of failure, failure, failure on education, education, education. For most of that 12 year period we have been reasonably prosperous as a nation and the funding would have been then to set up such a scheme long ago. I doubt this is a new issue that has suddenly dawned on the Department of Education and Children