Today Labour leader Keir Starmer set out his vision for education in a speech that lambasted the government’s failure to enact educational reform.

His ‘education mission’ speech was strong on personal narrative and anecdote. But critics within the Party were quick to point out that there were few concrete commitments to tackle the current crisis in education.

Momentum called on Labour’s leader to support investment in pay rises, infrastructure and free school meals.

Hilary Schan, Momentum Co-Chair, said: “Labour is right to identify breaking down barriers to opportunity as a key focus for government. But Keir Starmer is missing the elephant in the room: investment.

“As trade unions and think tanks alike are saying, to build a better future for our young people, Labour needs to invest in it. In pay rises for our teachers, to halt the retention crisis. In our dilapidated infrastructure, so kids are learning in the right environment. In free school meals, so no child has to learn on an empty stomach. And in the abolition of tuition fees, so young people don’t come of age under a mountain of debt.

“From banks to digital giants, windfall taxes could raise ample amounts to cover this investment. Labour’s Leadership must choose the many over the few.”

Momentum is proposing a motion for September’s Party Conference calling for free school meals. A further motion aimed at addressing the general crisis in education calls for an increase state education spending from 3.9% of GDP to 6% over a lifetime of a Labour government, returning pay to 2010 levels and replacing OFSTED with a peer review process and local authority safeguarding checks.

It wants to close down the Institute of Teaching, handing back teacher education to universities, and appoint a panel of educationists, including education unions, to devise a national curriculum and examination framework which restores the arts, leaves room for local plus school-based initiatives and replaces GCSE, vocational qualifications and A level with a baccalaureate-style qualification.

In further and higher education, Momentum wants to abolish tuition fees and restore the educational maintenance allowance. None of these issues  were addressed in Starmer’s speech. Instead,  Starmer ruled out out a reduction in tuition fees.

Starmer had nothing to say about the current crisis in higher education and came under fire today from the lecturers union, the UCU, after he criticised the marking boycott. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady tweeted: “Not a word from Starmer on: • redundancies in universities • exploitative employment practices • excessive VC pay Not a word on how Labour would fix any of these problems. The Labour leader should use his voice to back workers, not undermine them.”

Former Labour NEC member Rachlel Garnham, who words in the sector, tweeted: “Starmer again demonstrating that he’s v much not on the side of workers & unions by saying university workers should restart marking and assessment,” adding, ”If he thinks industrial action should end because it’s disruptive, he should not be leading the party of LABOUR.”

David Osland widened the critique, tweeting: “A party that wanted to ‘crack the class ceiling’ would abolish private education, scrap hereditary titles, restore student grants, outlaw unpaid internships and adopt all-working-class parliamentary shortlists.”

Putting flesh on the bone of Labour’s education policy is likely to be one of the main debates at Labour’s National Policy Forum at the end of the month. The fight over this central area of policy continues.

Image: Demonstration by the NEU in London, July 5th 2023, c/o Mike Phipps