EDUCATION, and how we help to prepare and equip our children during their formative years for the world outside, is one of the most sensitive issues in an election. Yet there are many problems with our system – including lack of choice. One in six parents can’t secure a place for their child at their preferred secondary school. So how can we help?

Conservatives will start by helping teachers do their job better. We will make detention easier, reform the exclusion process, and give headteachers the powers they need to find and confiscate items that may cause violence or disruption.

We will take urgent action to reverse the decline in standards. We will reform the National Curriculum, remove political interference from GCSEs and A-levels, and allow state schools to do the same high quality exams as private schools.

We will replace Key Stage 1 Sats with a simple reading test, reform Key Stage 2 Sats, and make Ofsted report on schools’ setting policies and reading schemes. We will move to a high quality system of teacher recruitment and training by raising entry requirements, expanding Teach First and incentivising top maths and science graduates.

But our most radical plans are to make it much easier for educational charities, groups of parents and teachers, cooperatives, and others to start new Academies (independent, non-selective state schools). This will mean that new choices will be provided.

Here in Wyre Forest I have been campaigning with my Conservative colleagues to redress the imbalance which means that Worcestershire receives significantly less per pupil funding than elsewhere. If Kidderminster’s Baxter College were moved to central London, they would receive over £3 million a year more to do exactly the same job. This is not fair. We will change the funding system to a national per pupil funding system with extra funding for the poorest pupils.

My Conservative colleagues at County Hall have been driving forward the schools rebuilding programme in Wyre Forest. This is still on track and I am committed to this improvement and investment for our schools. It will provide not just an excellent opportunity for our school children, but with better local education, Wyre Forest becomes more attractive for businesses to invest in.

Last, but not least, as the building programme progresses, I am urging the county council to ‘think local’ when it comes to choosing contractors for building. I want to see local skills used to transform local children’s prospects.