Politicians need to face up to the schools lottery fiasco (From The Argus)

Politicians need to face up to the schools lottery fiasco

5:08pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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Why is it that politicians refuse to listen to the public on the vital issue of education? The schools admissions lottery is a fiasco. When will the political elite admit that they have messed up and start working on an alternative solution?

Every child deserves the best possible start in life but at the moment they are subject to a mixture of fluke, luck and chance.

The mainstream political parties seem not to grasp the importance of getting this right for future generations, maybe because their personal circumstances allow them to guarantee a good education for their child by simply getting out their cheque books.

A few years ago my children were subject to the Brighton and Hove lottery fiasco – we managed to escape because we could scrape together enough savings which, along with a good chunk of our income, is enough to send them to a private school where, thankfully, they are thriving.

I realise how lucky we are to be able to do this but the tragedy is that many parents simply do not have this as an option. I am not going to propose a glib solution here, but no solution will be found while politicians are in denial about there being a genuine problem.

From my own experience I know that this whole issue is of great concern to parents of young children across the area who feel let down by the current system – both nationally and locally. And as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hove and Portslade I am determined to do something about it.

The UK Independence Party believes that every child deserves the best possible start in life and that this could be funded by the millions of pounds that would be saved if we were to withdraw from the EU.

The UK currently pays £45m a day to the EU – such significant sums of money would be better spent ensuring all our schools were up to scratch, thus providing greater choice to all parents across Hove and Portslade.

Paul Perrin
UKIP Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hove and Portslade