Article published in the Wear Valley Mercury, July 2010
Over the last decade we have seen real progress in our local schools.
In 1997, only one in three children in Bishop Auckland left school with 5 or more good GCSEs, but now over three quarters do. Over that time, more than £50 million was spent on improving school buildings, and the Labour Government had plans for a further £56 million of investment in Wear Valley’s schools.
So I share the anger and disappointment that the new Coalition Government has now decided that these new schools buildings will not go ahead.
The parents, children and staff at Bishop Barrington and King James I College will now not get their new £34 million school, and the £22 million refit of St John’s has also been cancelled.
And as if that was not bad enough, insult has been added to injury by the chaotic way in which the new Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, made the announcement – with the press being informed before Parliament, and with no fewer than 5 different lists being published of the schools affected.
Mr Gove may now have apologised for his Department’s numerous administrative errors, but he has refused to apologise for a policy that means our children will once again have to learn in sub-standard, outdated classrooms.
The Government speaks with undisguised zeal of the need to cut public spending and remove ‘inefficiencies’ in our public services, but projects such as those at Bishop Barrington, King James’, and St John’s are an investment in our children’s future, to help equip them with the skills, training and qualifications they will need.
And it is scandalous that this Government can find money to set up new free-market schools, but they cannot do so for building and repairing our schools.
Over the weekend I spoke with a number of the Headteachers’ whose schools will now not get the new buildings they had planned, and I am more convinced than ever of the urgent need for these projects to go ahead.
