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UK coalition leaders spar over schools
Liberal Democrats leader opposes 'free school' system favoured by PM's Tories
BRITISH Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has denied allegations that his government is "facing a crisis" after news emerged that the senior politician plans to distance himself from the country's existing education policies which emphasise the autonomy of schools against state controls.
In a speech scheduled for delivery today but whose contents have already been leaked to the media, Mr Clegg - leader of the Liberal Democrats in a ruling coalition with the Conservatives - argues that, unlike the Conservatives who want British schools to be independent in setting their teaching priorities, the Liberals prefer to enforce a single national standard of quality controls on schools.
Mr Clegg claims that his disagreement with the government is part of a "grown-up" debate. But Conservatives close to Prime Minister David Cameron accuse Mr Clegg of being more interested in how he fares at the next general election than in the welfare of British's schoolchildren.
The spat is over the centre-piece of the current government's education policy which created the so-called "free schools", set up by parents or groups of like-minded individuals and paid for with taxpayers' money but operating outside the daily control of the authorities.
Education Secretary Michael Gove regards the free schools as the biggest achievement of his career. "They are run by teachers, not local bureaucrats or politicians, and are free to set their own curriculum, decide how they spend their money and employ who they think are the best people for the job," he told Parliament in London this week in a spirited defence of his scheme.
And they are popular: Since the system was introduced in September 2011, more than 170 free schools have been established, many at the beheat of ethnic and religious minorities.
Given the scheme's popularity, the Liberal Democrats went along with the plan; even the opposition Labour Party recently accepted that the free school movement is irreversible and pledged to protect their independence should the party return to power after the next general election scheduled in 2015.
But Mr Clegg is now determined to break this consensus.
In his speech today he plans to dismiss "certain aspects of schools policy" as merely "the priorities of the Conservation Party which I would not want to see continue".
The Deputy Prime Minister will add that he believes "every parent need reassurance that the school their child attends, whatever its title or structure, meets certain core standards of teaching and care".
He believes, therefore, that a national curriculum should be applied to all, as the ultimate "parental guarantee".
Mr Clegg is helped by the fact that a series of recent scandals has brought the new free school system into disrepute.
A headmistress of a central London primary school was forced to resign after it emerged that she had no formal educational qualifications, prompting parental concerns that the free school movement is more interested in management techniques than in educational excellence.
More seriously, an inspection by the government's Office for Standards in Education at Al-Madinah, a Muslim free school in the central English city of Derby, concluded that it was "dysfunctional" and was "falling in all areas" - from the selection and training of teachers, to discipline and right up to the subjects taught.
The government ordered the school to be temporarily shut, and Mr Cameron urged citizens not to use the AI-Madinah episode "as a stick with which to beat the whole free school movement".
But that is precisely what the Deputy Prime Minister is now doing, to the fury of Mr Cameron's Conservatives.
Mr Clegg dismisses as "complete and utter nonsense" speculation among London's political observers that his decision to turn against free schools is intended to reposition his Liberals as closer to the opposition Labour in the run-up to the 2015 general election.
He claims that "tensions" are part of being in coalition; "It's not a political crisis when some of those differences are articulated in public," Mr Clegg added.
Nevertheless, once rekindled, the debate about free schools is likely to prove electorally divisive.
For it ultimately amounts to the continuation of a long-running, historic British confrontation between Labour supporters who believe that all children should be educated in the same way even if this means lower standards, and Conservatives, who emphasise freedom of choice, even if this ends up being socially divisive, with the better-off patronising better schools.
Neither camp has ever succeeded in inventing a good national school system.
But that does not stop all British leaders from treating education as a never-ending ideological battlefield.