General Discussion

Question:  Devon is one of the poorest funded education authorities. How can this be improved?

UKIP candidate: This has been going on for years. Is of the belief that the funding disparity was determined by political bias by the last Labour government. What is needed is a fair funding formula across the whole country.

Labour candidate: Labour wants to devolve power to the regions. We need to get rid of Free schools. According to Ofsted 1in 3 Free schools are not working properly. We need qualified teachers and we need funding to be equal across the country.

Conservative candidate: Has been working on this over the past 5 years. The government recognised the problem and did something about it but more still needs doing. The introduction of the Pupil Premium is important and has helped..

Green candidate: We need a fair funding formula. This does not mean that every part of the country gets the same amount of money but we need more money in Devon. The system needs to be fairer. All schools should be run by local authorities. Charity status should be removed from public schools. Every child should have every opportunity and this will be achieved only by having comprehensive schools.

Trade Union and Socialist Coalition candidate: Comprehensive system is a successful system. Funding has now been split up between all different types of schools, Acadamies, Free, Local Authority schools. Need proper teachers as all the funding in the world won’t make any difference at all if the teachers are not proper ones.

Lib Dem candidate:  Why do kids in Surrey need more funding than kids in Devon? We need more funding for Devon. The funding formula needs to be corrected. Devon needs an education minister in government who comes from Devon and therefore who will know all the problems and will get them addressed.