14 December 2007
The government's £1bn ten-year Children's Plan, setting out a strategy for education, welfare and play, has received a cautious welcome from education professionals.
Outlining the proposals on December 11, Children's Secretary Ed Balls said the aim was to make this country 'the best place in the world to grow up'. The plan includes changes to the primary school curriculum and the possible end of the Sats tests by 2009.
The wide-ranging scheme also promises a £225m investment in 3,500 new playgrounds, with another £160m to develop youth facilities over the next two years; flexible school starts for children born in the summer; and more information for parents about their children's progress at school.
'For children in their early teenage years, supervised adventure play is great. As young children go into their teenage years, we have got to invest in youth services,' Balls said.
The government also wants to make teaching a postgraduate-level profession, and will encourage all new teachers to study for a master's degree.
There will be a 'root-and-branch' review of the primary school curriculum, including making modern languages compulsory.
Weak teachers, whose 'competence falls to unacceptably low levels', face the threat of being removed from the profession.
National Union of Teachers general secretary Steve Sinnott said: 'In putting schools at the heart of establishing new communities, the government has to be aware that their capacity is not limitless.'
However, Sinnott welcomed the move to make teaching a master's-degree profession – saying that it was 'an idea whose time had come'.
But Opposition parties attacked the plans. Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove dismissed the plan as a 'missed opportunity'.
He said: 'Instead of a broad and deep vision, we have had a disappointingly hesitant and patchy programme, which betrays an itch to intervene but no grasp of the real problems.'
The Liberal Democrats' children's spokesman, David Laws, said that the plan seemed to 'amount to a hotchpotch of reviews, recycled policy announcements, and Whitehall meddling'.
PFdec2007
