As readers of this blog may have seen, the government’s new Education Bill had its first reading in the House of Commons on 26th January 2011. You can view the Bill and the Explanatory Notes to it (prepared by DfE) from this page. The Bill makes amendments to the existing education law statutes (interestingly, as you can see from the Glossary in the explanatory notes, there have been, excluding the Children Act 1989, 16 education statutes in 18 years, from the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 to the Academies Act 2010. The torrent of legislation seems set to continue under the present government) and takes forward proposals in the White Paper The Importance of Teaching, published in November last year.
There has, so far, not been a lot of media coverage of the Bill, although there is a good general introduction on the BBC news website. That article includes a number of quotes from the Secretary of State which can also be read in the press release on the DfE website. It also notes that the Labour party has accused the government of “going back to the 1950s” in the Bill, although Stephen Ball in this article in the Guardian finds the Bill taking us “back to the 19th century”. The Daily Mail meanwhile focuses on the Bill’s proposals to give pre-charge anonymity to teachers facing accusations from pupils.
Away from the political controversy that the Bill will undoubtedly generate, 11KBW’s education law group will soon be hosting a seminar on the legal changes that the Bill will bring if passed. Watch this space for details.
Tags: Education Bill