Voters’ views on the need for more teachers, scrapping Ofsted grades and boosting apprenticeships are set out in poll findings published today.
The poll by the Public First think tank examines the appeal of a series of education policies and pledges announced by both the Conservatives and Labour in the run-up to next month’s general election.
It shows that the two policies with the most support are Labour’s pledge to hire 6,500 more teachers and the Conservatives’ promise to increase the number of apprenticeships for both young people and older adults.
However, Labour’s plan to consult on scrapping Ofsted single-word judgements and replacing them with scorecards received a negative response from the voters polled by Public First.
In the poll of 2,011 adults, carried out from 7-9 June, each respondent was shown a pair of policy commitments from a list of 20 and asked to choose which they liked the most and the least.
The poll used this approach to provide a ranked list of policies by popularity based on an overall net score.
Respondents were not told which party had proposed each policy, and Public First provided a brief description for each.
Teacher recruitment and apprenticeships
The two most popular policies, which both received a net 30 per cent positive response, were Labour’s pledge to recruit 6,500 more teachers, and the Conservative pledge to increase the number of apprenticeships for both young people and older adults.
After that, the Conservative policy to create local plans for jobs and growth received a 23 per cent net positive response.
There was a net positive response of 19 per cent for the Labour policy to implement better support for the mental health of young people through recruiting additional counsellors for every school.
The Liberal Democrats have also pledged to put a mental health professional in every school, to establish mental health hubs in every community, to address the underfunding of children’s mental health services, and to create a mental health commissioner.
The next most popular policies in the Public First report were the Conservatives’ pledge to expand free childcare so that every nine-month-old to five-year-old is eligible for 30 hours a week, and Labour’s planned review of the national curriculum.
Labour’s plan to end tax breaks for private schools was the next most popular (11 per cent) among respondents, followed by the Conservatives’ pledge to improve schools by bringing them under the governance of more successful schools (10 per cent).
Ofsted judgement policy
But Labour’s plan to replace single-word Ofsted inspection grades with a scorecard had a negative scoring of 9 per cent from respondents.
And the least popular schools policy among respondents was Labour’s pledge to bring in supervised toothbrushing for Reception pupils, which attracted a 49 per cent net negative response.
Respondents to the poll were also asked which areas of education policy should be prioritised if a political party had more money to spend on education.
The most popular suggestion was reducing class sizes by recruiting more teachers (32 per cent), followed by free school meals for all children up to 16 (27 per cent), more funding for school mental health services (24 per cent), and higher pay for teachers and school staff (24 per cent).
Free school meals for all children was a particularly popular policy for poll respondents in the North East, where 37 per cent named it as a priority.
Recruitment and retention crisis
The most recent teacher workforce data found that teacher vacancies have increased by 20 per cent since last year.
The National Foundation for Educational Research also predicted in March that the government was at risk of under-recruiting trainee secondary teachers for 10 out of 17 subjects for next year.
Labour has yet to set out exactly how it would achieve the recruitment of 6,500 more teachers. Its manifesto is set to be announced tomorrow.
The Conservative Party pledged in its manifesto to expand the recruitment and retention premium and reduce teacher workload. The party also said it would extend bonuses for teachers in priority areas and Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects to eligible teachers in further education.
The findings come alongside new polling from YouGov, commissioned by the NEU teaching union, which reveals the election priorities of more than 3,000 parents.
When asked which policies would help their child succeed, parents were most likely to say that better facilities would help (41 per cent), while 43 per cent chose more support staff in class and 40 per cent said more qualified teachers.
The polling also shows that half of parents (49 per cent) were dissatisfied with government funding for staffing and academic support in their child’s educational setting.
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