ELL. Education and life long learning
ELL1. A Green education system must help people to become lifelong learners: good at learning from experience, able to work together with others, understanding and valuing different cultures.
ELL2. As much emphasis should be placed on enabling pupils and students to become original, creative, self-confident people who understand their community and local environment, as is put on conventional academic achievement.
ELL3. The current system is failing our children. They start life as eager learners, full of curiosity. By the end of their school career, too many see themselves as failures. Some have been excluded or have stopped attending. Many have no desire to continue any formal education. Those who do well in school tests emerge into a society that has a narrow view of education as a collection of marketable certificates. This reflects the view of the other political parties: that education is important mainly as a means to enable competition in the global economy.
ELL4. Currently pupils' progression through our schools is determined primarily by their age. This is ageism and is wrong. Some pupils learn faster than others. The main determining factor should be the needs of the child. This should be established not simply with tests but through discussion and agreement between teachers, the pupil's parents or guardians and the pupil. Pupils should be given the option of repeating years or progressing through the school system more quickly.
ELL5. Greens want to encourage learning both within and outside the school system and as such re-affirm that parents have the primary responsibility for their children's education and that they have the right to exercise this responsibility by educating them out of school, and that they should be able to exercise this right in partnership with schools through the part-time attendance of their children.
ELL6. Greens want to:
Increase recruitment and retention of teachers by increasing teachers' non-contact time, and reducing class sizes
Replace the current system of school inspections for one that involves peer review of teachers and self-evaluation of schools monitored by the local education authority
Give schools the right to opt out of the national curriculum and tailor their lessons to reflect more accurately the needs of their pupils.
Encourage schools to make their facilities available to the community which they serve and become a focal point within their community for both educational and leisure activities
Move away from an age based school system to one that meets the individual needs of the pupil.
Increase provision for adult education in local communities
Re-introduce mandatory student grants and free-tuition for student education
Provide advice and support for parents who choose to educate their children at home or in partnership with schools.
