Education

Too many children are still leaving school without the knowledge and skills to be successful. Finding a good school is a struggle, lessons don’t always stretch the brightest or support those who need more help, and classes are often too big for teachers to control.

Every child is different, so schools need to be free to teach children in different ways and get the very best from them. Liberal Democrats want every child to get an excellent education because it is the best way to get on in life, get a good job, and learn about the world.

We will aim to cut class sizes, set teachers free to spend more time in the classroom and raise standards in every school with more money for things like one to one tuition and classes in the evenings.

In Government we are delivering on our commitment for a fully funded pupil premium, through which we will spend an extra £7bn on giving the poorest children a better start in life.

Liberal Democrat party policy remains to phase out tuition fees, but in the circumstances of the coalition that was a policy we could not deliver.

We have used our position in the Coalition to do everything possible to make the new system of higher education funding as fair as possible. We have helped produce a genuinely fair and progressive system that will help people from poorer backgrounds go on to higher education.

No-one has to pay up front, including part-time students, and graduates make monthly payments based on their earnings and only after they are earning £21k (up from £15k today). These monthly payments will be lower than they are today in every case.