ATL

Conservative school proposals 'costly and unworkable'

10 March 2010

Conservative proposals to create schools independent of local authority control are unworkable in reality, it has been claimed.

Jamie O'Connell, marketing director of the Student Room website, said that plans to split schools into autonomous units, with groups of parents in charge of operations, would prove impracticable as few parents would have the necessary time to invest.

He said: "While smaller class sizes and more parental involvement are a fantastic ambition, I don't feel it can be achieved for the majority of students.

"Lots of 'bespoke' schools would be costly to fund and parents go out to work and in many cases simply aren't able to help their children."

The Conservatives say that allowing large schools to split into smaller, parent-led institutions would result in smaller class sizes and raised educational standards.

According to the party, the number of maintained secondary schools has dropped by 344 since Labour came to power in 1997, despite pupil numbers rising by 104,500 during the same period.