pluto111

Schools - all sectors to receive direct grant where fees do not exceed state rates. State schools able to use this grant to buy essential services - from LEAs or from elsewhere.

Schools free to offer "specialisms" (sic) based on academic ability.

Special school charities funded out of Lottery, to replace those schools closed in the name of integration.

Universities - scrap their annual block grant, to fund an R&D tax allowance. This will bankrupt the mickey-mouse institutions, as they don't do research - and will help rebuild British industry after the damaging EU years.

State scholarships - award these to the highest scorers in the exams. Whatever the tuition fees charged by the chosen institution, and whatever the parental income, the state would pay these fees in full. No more indiscriminate grants for the academically challenged to do "media studies" etc.

Housing benefit - UK students can't claim this, so there are now proportionately fewer working class students at university now than there were in the 50's. Transfer this benefit to UK students living independently, from non-nationals.

Learning and Skills Councils - scrap these EU-related monstrosities to fund vocational training vouchers instead.

Sarumano

NO school should be 'specialist' in the strict sense of the word...Elitist, yes, if you have intellect, go to a (grammar?) school where you can best use it, if you don't, go to a bog-standard comp, or a special school; but I see no reason why a school NEEDS to 'specialise' in eg maths.

If you have teachers who are good at getting a subject across to kids, they can give pointers to other school teachers during the holidays instead of filling in b Ofsted forms and reports.

For further education, I would suggest handing every sixth-former two vouchers as they leave school, entitling them to 1(one) free Further Education course and 1(one) University course, value £zilch which they may cash in or use to 'purchase' Further Education.

Single use; The student hands them to the establishment, the College or Uni hands the vouchers to Government on the first day of term and collects the handout for the year. If you want more than one course, you pay for it. If you change courses, you negotiate, the voucher is for a complete course plus textbooks, not an amount.

Some will not go to Uni until late in life; they use their voucher then; some will choose not to take courses, they can sell them on for whatever the market bears. Some will be incapable of further ed or uni, in which case again, they can flog their voucher on the market.

Government simply collects tax and hands out an amount from its education reserve every year.

Percy the Poodle

School specialisms are a bit of a white elephant. Few kids know what they want to do or even what they are best at until the end of secondary education. Therefore this is just a parental decision about what they would like their kids to be good at (which may not get the best out of them) and will only result in children travelling further to schools with the right specialisms - bad for the environment, transport and children's lives.