(UK) Gove's school plan a 'vicious assault'

Wednesday 24 November 2010
by Paddy McGuffin


Education Secretary Michael Gove unveiled a raft of regressive measures in his schools white paper today.

Mr Gove set out plans covering teacher training, qualifications and assessment, inspections, league tables and funding.

On qualifications he said: "Primaries and secondaries which fail to get students to an acceptable level and fail to have students making decent progress will be eligible for intervention."

He described the national curriculum as a "straitjacket which stifles the creativity of our best teachers" and said he would give teachers more freedom to "innovate and inspire."

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Ministers will also create a new Troops to Teachers programme to attract "natural leaders" from the armed forces into the classroom.

Teaching unions condemned the proposals as "history repeating itself," "incoherent" and riddled with contradictions.