Industry News
'State funding equivalent to private' promise
Posted on 24th October 2007
Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Nick Clegg has vowed that any future government headed by him would ensure state schools receive equivalent funding to those in the independent sector.
In a speech to London's National Liberal Club, Mr Clegg promised his government would ensure "the money for the poorest state school pupils rises to private school levels, not one day, but straight away", the BBC reports.
Recently, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers Steve Sinnott demanded to know when the government intended to raise the funding offered to state schools to private school levels, in an interview with the Guardian.
In 2006 the then-chancellor Gordon Brown pledged billions of pounds to help eradicate the gap between private and state education.
He claimed his long-term ambition was to raise the standard of education offered to state-educated children to that offered to the small minority studying in independent schools.
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