With about two years to go before a general election, it looks like education will struggle for any kind of electoral oxygen.

Recent polling from Ipsos Mori* reveals that only 6 per cent of people regard education as the most important issue facing Britain today - down from 27 per cent during 2017, and from 40 per cent a decade before that.

Given this, and the toxic nature of education debates - witness the recent furore over a relatively benign advisory report on skills to the Labour party - it might be tempting for opposition politicians to take a “don’t do God” approach to education policy.

In short, offer a few generic platitudes, give some vague critiques of current policy, but say or promise nothing controversial or meaningful.

This would be a mistake. I’m not a member of any political party, but I believe that Labour and the Lib Dems should open talks to create a joint education policy, with a common manifesto and the bones of a one-year and five-year plan.

While there have always been tacit agreements on various issues, the parties have (to my knowledge) never had a deliberately shared stance on anything at election time.

A joint approach on one issue would signal that, unlike the fight-picking tactics we’ve had since 2010, a new administration would take a more consensus-led approach to decision making.

And why should that area be education? Possibly more than any other area of policy, and as the Foundation for Education Development’s work has shown, education is in urgent need of stable, longer-term policy development.

As such, a joint Lib-Lab pact on education could both symbolise and enable such a long-term approach.

What might such a policy include? I run an education and youth think tank, so of course, I’ve got loads of ideas I’d love to see in this joint manifesto - or any manifesto, for that matter.

But I’ll keep my powder dry and instead suggest four questions that might help any process in the broader sense.

1. What will you keep or only tweak if necessary?

Schools in England suffer from more policy frenzy than any schools in the world. More than ever, leaders and teachers need a level of patience and stability after the pandemic.

An opposition manifesto should be clear about things it won’t change.

2. What will you abandon or radically change?

The conservative opposition in 2010 was loud and clear on what they wanted to remove in education - in particular, the “every child matters” agenda, which took a broader view of children’s development.

In contrast, all opposition parties have been silent on what they would get rid of.

It’s as if current policy is perfect and just needs building on. A joint manifesto should be clear on which aspects of policy are flawed, and where cuts and cost savings could be made.

3. Where will you devolve power to schools and localities, and how?

After nearly four decades of centralisation, all schools are now under greater Department for Education control than ever. If this had led to sustained improvements in pupil outcomes or teacher quality and retention, such centralisation might have been justified.

A joint opposition manifesto should articulate a role for government as a “space creator”, allowing schools and localities greater freedom to determine their own mission and priorities.

This should include developing aspects of their own curriculum that go beyond national curriculum requirements, or teacher development that go beyond the early career framework and national professional qualifications.

4. Which long-term issues will you solve in partnership with the profession?

Corbynesque pledges to, for instance, abolish Ofsted or remove Sats or GCSEs, would be educational suicide, risking the usual “soft on standards” critique thrown at progressive educators.

Instead, a joint manifesto should commit to opening up longer-term debate on the most entrenched problems in our education system (my chosen issues would be our assessment and accountability systems, both pervasive and punitive outliers compared to other systems around the world).

This process must foreground the voices of serving teachers and engage all sides of this diverse profession, from progressive to traditional and everyone in between.

System changes on tough issues need time: to create consensus around the case for the change; to co-design, and then implement these changes.

A joint opposition policy should give a commitment to explore these issues, with key deadlines for decisions and delivery to ensure that cans aren’t just kicked down the road.

Creating a joint manifesto won’t be an easy or quick job, nor should it be, but the process and outcome could both help raise the volume and quality of education debate at our next election.

Joe Hallgarten is the chief executive of the Centre for Education and Youth. He tweets @joehallg

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