Education is set to be a key battleground in the forthcoming general election on 8 June, with one in five people (19 per cent) thinking that it is one of the most important issues facing the country, according to a poll by Ipsos MORI in March.

But this is still low compared with some previous general election campaigns, as the figures below reveal.

The data tracks how important the public judged various key issues to be, using statistics from the closest available month to a general election.

In April 1997, more than half of the public (54 per cent) thought that education was one of the most important issues facing Britain, following Tony Blair’s famous speech that the top priorities for his Labour government would be “education, education, education”. Four years later, it was still holding up at 44 per cent.

But the percentage for education was far lower for the October 1974 election (5 per cent), 1979 (17 per cent) and 1983 (9 per cent).

Education is judged to be more important this year, but it still trails way behind Europe - cited by 51 per cent of the public - and the NHS, cited by 45 per cent.

@willmartie