Education

Assorted acolytes from the teaching unions are padding around the Lib Dem conference, fomenting discontent around activists who are opposed to the coalition’s adoption of academies and free schools. Officials from NASUWT and the NUT have pricked the airwaves with tales of concern and frustration. Education minister Sarah Teather addressed the conference earlier this morning and she was unrepentant. She eviscerated Labour’s record on education and, by extension, the system that has been dominated by the teaching unions. She also pledged to double the pupil premium next year to £1.25 billion, which will allow schools to increase their expenditure on tuition, parental support, after school clubs and so forth.

David Cameron and IDS have been promoting the Work Programme this afternoon and they reiterated that jobseekers must learn English to claim benefits if their language difficulties are hampering their job applications. It’s another indication of the government’s radical approach to welfare reform. Aside from that, the main event in Westminster today was Ed Miliband’s speech to the TUC. Miliband was widely heckled by the Brothers, especially when he told them: “Let me just tell you about my experience of academies as I’ve got two academies in my own constituency. They have made a big difference to educational standards in my constituency and that is my local experience of that.

When Michael Howard offered David Cameron the pick of the jobs in the shadow Cabinet after the 2005 election, Cameron chose education. Howard was disappointed that Cameron hadn't opted to shadow Gordon Brown but Cameron argued that education was the most important portfolio. A sense of that commitment was on display today in his speech on education, delivered at one of the new free schools that have opened this term. His defence of the coalition’s plans to make it easier to sack bad teachers summed up its refreshing radicalism. He simply said, "If it's a choice between making sure our children get the highest quality teaching or some teachers changing career... I know what I choose.

One ally of the deputy Prime Minister suggested to me yesterday that the press was missing the most significant aspect of Clegg’s speech on education: Clegg acknowledging that free schools would now be a permanent part of the educational landscape. This ally argued that this was a big deal given that a year ago Lib Dem conference had voted to boycott these schools. The Lib Dem leader is considerably more liberal than his party. This means that he sometimes needs, so the argument goes, to sweeten the reformist pill with some Lib Dem rhetoric. Hence the emphasis on free schools being fair schools in yesterday’s speech. But this internal Lib Dem party management is frustrating for Conservative ministers.

There used to be a time when some of the most important relationships in the government were between Tory reformers and Nick Clegg. The Lib Dem leader, to his credit, tilted the scales in favour of radicalism in both education and welfare. But those reformist alliances are now pretty much over. Indeed, Ken Clarke – with his plans to put rehabilitation first in the justice system – is the only Tory Cabinet minister who remains in a strategic alliance with the Deputy Prime Minister. Iain Duncan-Smith’s relations with the Lib Dems have soured over the issue of family policy. On the education front, the Clegg-Gove axis is clearly at an end following Nick Clegg’s speech today, and the briefing that preceded it.

As the Lib Dem conference approaches, we can expect some briefing from their spin doctors claiming to have "wrecked" all manner of Tory policies. It's a petty and ugly phase of the coalition. Last year: nuptial bliss. This year: one partner throwing china at the other. The next phase is divorce, which is why I'm surprised to see the Lib Dems accelerating the process by today's divisive briefings. Especially on something as self-defeating as school reform. We are told that "Nick Clegg defeats bid by Michael Gove to let free schools make profits". This is nonsense. As I write in this week's Spectator, Gove is not pushing for profit-seeking schools, to the disappointment of some inside Number 10.

If it is GCSE results day, there must be a row about government education policy. True to form, the NASUWT — a union whose role often appears to be to make the NUT look moderate by comparison — has come out with a comically hyperbolic statement accusing the coalition of a ‘betrayal of young people’ because of its decision to reform the educational maintenance allowance. What the NASUWT statement ignores is that the real betrayal of young people has been pushing them into doing courses and qualifications that condemn them to a life of low-skilled labour at best. Last year, only 16 per cent of pupils achieved a C or above in English, Maths, a foreign language, a science and one of history of geography.