Leading article: Blair faces a protest vote
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Your support makes all the difference.The online survey of teachers conducted for The Independent by www.schoolzone.co.uk reveals considerable disillusionment with Labour.
The online survey of teachers conducted for The Independent by www.schoolzone.co.uk reveals considerable disillusionment with Labour. Whether half those who voted Labour at the last election will actually vote Lib Dem on 5 May is unknown but the fact that they are expressing such disenchantment is bad news for the Government. Tony Blair put education at the top of his priorities. But the teachers who filled in the questionnaire do not think Labour has done well. As many as 64 per cent say Labour has not delivered on education. Yet independent analysts at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics are quite clear that standards have risen under this Government. To that extent Tony Blair has done what he promised.
But there is little doubt that many in the self-selected sample are unhappy with many of the Government's policies. They don't like the proposals to give parents more power, and they certainly don't like the idea of parents being able to trigger an inspection of a school which could result in the sacking of a head. Perhaps neither of those is surprising: teachers are defending their power base. More surprising is their scepticism that the Government has done enough to improve school meals. Ministers have put more money into school meals. The problem for Ruth Kelly is that she was seen to be responding to an agenda set by Jamie Oliver.
Teachers clearly trust the Lib Dems to spend more on education than Labour. There is some evidence for the Lib Dems promising to spend more. They have said they will abolish Gordon Brown's Child Trust Fund and put the £1.5bn into reducing primary school class sizes. Against that, Labour has promised to spend more of the gross domestic product on education. It has also given universities the freedom to charge top-up fees, which could rise in future and bring more money into higher education.
The conclusion must be that teachers are protesting at Labour policies by opting for the Lib Dems. It may be inevitable that a Prime Minister who has sided so strongly with the consumer over schooling and who has pushed through an unpopular and misunderstood policy on university tuition fees will find teachers turning against him after eight years.
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