New Education Secretary Kit Malthouse confirms he is drafting plans to end 25-year ban on new high schools ordered by Liz Truss to expand ‘parental choice’ of how their children are raised
- Malthouse said Prime Minister wanted to address parents’ strong desire for more choice
- There are over 150 secondary schools that select students by ability
- But the opening of new ones was banned in 1998 by Tony Blair
Ministers are planning the UK’s first secondary schools in nearly a quarter of a century, the new education minister said today.
Kit Malthouse said PM Liz Truss wanted her government to “address the strong desire of many parents” for more choice.
There are over 150 secondary schools that select pupils by ability in the UK, but the opening of new ones was banned in 1998 by Tony Blair.
The problem has become a cause célèbre for many Tory MPs, but despite several attempts to reintroduce them over the past 12 years, nothing has happened.
Speaking to the Yorkshire Post today Mr Malthouse said: ‘We are talking about parental choice, everyone should be able to make a choice for their children.
“She (the Prime Minister) certainly wants to respond to the strong desire of many parents to reflect the benefits that many have received from gymnasium.”
But the idea was rejected by Labour, with its shadow Bridget Phillipson saying: ‘This is a diversionary tactic from a desperate government that has run out of ideas on how to tackle the challenges facing our country.
Kit Malthouse (left) said Prime Minister Liz Truss wanted her government to “address the strong desire of many parents” for more choice.
Labor’s Bridget Phillipson said: ‘This is a diversionary tactic from a desperate government that has run out of ideas on how to tackle the challenges facing our country.
Grammar is a small minority of schools, they don’t improve educational outcomes and parents don’t want them – they want the Education Secretary to raise standards in all our school communities.
Labor will aim to ensure that all young people leave education with the skills they need for work and life. That is why we will end tax breaks for private schools and invest the money in raising standards in state schools.”
Ms. Truss has described herself as a “huge proponent” of selective grammars. She sent her children to one, despite being educated at a state institute and going to Oxford.
Last weekend senior Tory backbencher Sir Graham Brady said he would try to amend the Schools Bill to allow for the building of new grammars.
He told the Sunday Telegraph: “What we want to do is not something that would force a major reorganization of the school system across the country, but rather something that would lift the legal ban preventing new selective schools,” he said. .