Green party would offer free early education to all children

The Green party is proposing to extend the education system to provide a free, universal and flexible system of good-quality early education for children from birth to seven, the age at which education would be made compulsory for children.

More details of how the political party would achieve this are set out in its manifesto, launched today.

The document states that settings delivering this high-quality care would include local education services run by local education authorities, infant schools and Sure Start children’s centres, too many of which the Green party says have closed as a result of austerity.

Settings would be led by qualified teachers with qualified teacher status (QTS), and with ‘specialist knowledge’ of early years education. All other staff would be required to have a Level 3 qualification. Parents would also be encouraged to participate in helping to run services.

The party claims that too little attention is currently paid to the child and to the value of early education.

‘The Government has focused on lower-quality childcare, which has little or no effect. Moreover, disadvantaged children who attend settings with children from mixed social backgrounds make more progress than those in settings serving mainly disadvantaged children’, the manifesto says.

‘These findings are why we want to create a universal high-quality early years education system used by everyone, to give every child the best possible start.’

The party’s manifesto also outlines plans to increase child benefit from 2016. Parents would continue to receive statutory maternity and paternity pay.

This, along with its other early years education and childcare policies, it estimates will cost around £8 billion a year over and above the cost of existing free and subsidised schemes and tax concessions, which it says would be abolished.

Schools

The Green Party believes that children are ‘over-assessed’ and teachers are ‘over-regulated’. As such, it says within its manifesto that it is determined to make schools fit for children rather than the other way round.

It would raise the age at which compulsory education begins to seven. Academic learning would start from six years old, and early years education would focus on play, social cohesion and confidence building.

Outdoor education and physical activity would be increased so children are able to establish an early and strong relationship with their local environment.

The Green party also wants to reduce class sizes to a maximum of 20 children, which it says would cost £1.5 billion over the Parliament.

Education and capital funding would be restored to 2010 levels, costing around £7 billion a year, and distributed fairly among local authorities.