Theresa May will temporarily set Brexit aside and try to repair her image with young voters with a speech on education, an issue where the opposition has the upper hand. To be clear, free tuition is not on the menu.
Echoing the tone of her first public address as prime minister in 2016, May on Monday will call for a system with fairer funding that opens up “opportunity for everyone,” while warning against an “outdated attitude” that favors academic over technical qualifications.
The reboot comes after a disastrous June election in which her Conservative Party lost its majority, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to offer free adult education a major draw. University students frequently graduate in the U.K. with debts of 50,000 pounds ($70,000) or more.
But education politics have also become inextricably linked to the vote to leave the European Union. After the 2016 referendum, there were protests among young people carrying banners reading, “You Stole My Future,” while Brexit also puts in jeopardy U.K. participation in exchange programs and EU funding for scientists and research in Britain. Even on the basic level of EU professors being able to continue working at U.K. universities, there is confusion.
Divisions
And just as with Brexit, there were already signs of division within May’s party on Sunday after Education Secretary Damian Hinds said there were various options to tackle costs to attend university, including shorter courses or charging more for math and science degrees than arts and humanities.
“What we need to look at is the different aspects of pricing — the cost that it is to put on the course, the value that it is to the student and also the value to our society as a whole and to our economy for the future,” Hinds said on the BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show.”
That drew criticism from both the Labour Party and Hinds’s own predecessor, Justine Greening.
The government must avoid a system in which poorer students choose a cheaper degree rather than one “that will really unlock their potential in future,” Greening said on ITV’s “Peston on Sunday.”
Angela Rayner, who would be in charge of education in a Labour government, called on the government to focus on bringing down costs including the rates on student loans. “Another review isn’t going to solve the problem of the hike in interest rates,” she said on “The Andrew Marr Show.”
source:-bloomberg.
