Tristram Hunt, the shadow secretary of state for education, has set out his priorities if Labour forms the next  government in May 2015, report Kate McKenzie and Martin Yarnit. In conversation with Jane Roberts at the recent Compass Education Conference, he said that free child care and wrap around provision, better technical and vocational provision for the ‘forgotten 50%’, and improving teacher quality would be top of his agenda.

The dismemberment of the youth and careers services were major causes for concern although he did not commit to finding the funding to re-establish them. He was also worried about the fragmentation of local education provision. Implicit in what he had to say was the question: what difference will it make to Stoke on Trent, his constituency and one of the poorest in England.

He gave several strong clues about future policy directions for Labour education including firm opposition to major upheavals in structure or curriculum.  Getting the right balance between autonomy and oversight was vital. Relentless structural and curriculum reform had to be stopped. He would  adopt an evidence based approach to reform. Partnerships of support and collaboration and a culture of no failure – he referred to these more than once in the course of an hour long conversation.

Providing free childcare as part of a wrap around service for young children would be a top priority, building on the success of early intervention strategy in places like Nottingham.

In order to improve the prospects for the forgotten 50% – those not going on to A levels and university entry, Labour was determined to streamline the number of vocational qualifications and was planning to introduce a technical and vocational baccalaureate. Steps would be taken to strengthen further education colleges’ engagement with labour markets. Hunt cited Bristol where most FE provision was irrelevant to the local economy.

Labour wanted to see a rise in the public status of teachers, as was the case in Finland. Teaching should be on a par with medicine and law as a profession.  The quality of teaching and the validation of the profession should be owned by the profession itself. There had to be investment in professional development.

Hunt expressed warm support for Michael Wilshaw to groans from the audience. He argued that Ofsted has its place and he wasn’t considering major reforms. Academy chains should become part of the inspection regime in England.  He favoured a broad profession-led discussion about what we are judging in schools. He recognized the value of HE in teacher education and teacher supply and would look at the impact of school-based training in narrowing the intake and the curriculum. He cited the disastrous fall in the number of history PGCEs in Sheffield.

In the face of the increasing fragmentation of the system it was vital to create partnerships of ‘support and challenge’.  Local collaboration was vital – schools could not succeed as islands.  Chris Husband’s report on Tower Hamlets showed the ‘usefulness’ of local authorities in school improvement. He was awaiting the outcome of David Blunkett’s inquiry into the middle tier before reaching any firm conclusions but was skeptical about Michael Gove’s new regional chancellors. He did, however, see scope for sub-regional clusters of local authorities providing support and challenge for school improvement.

Asked whether he planned to transfer all schools back to public ownership, he replied that he had a value neutral approach to all types of schools but was not considering major structural changes. He was clear, though, when it came to planning new schools, local authorities could become providers again. He also said that he would empower individual schools to leave failing academy chains.

The interview began with a question about how he saw the purposes of education. For him, they included  – self confidence, reading, writing, cultural inheritance, friendships, different pathways for some leading to employability at 18. He referred to the policy challenge of an international competitive market and believed that another useful outcome was the soft skills employers desired.

Clare Blackhall (3di associates) said that she was concerned by his use of language. There was a need to claim the importance of values, to empower young people and to reclaim the language of educations. Talking about soft skills demeaned an important part of what education was about. Hunt insisted that soft skills, resilience and emotional intelligence were useful terms that people understood. He also wanted to talk about excellence and rigour, terms that the left had surrendered to the right.

Asked about how he would consult young people and involve them in policy development, Hunt said that he supported the youth voice at a local level and through organisations like Bite the Ballot. He was open to ideas about how the student input could be fed into school policy.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) responded to Hunt.  Education, she began, is a right and not a privilege. It must be built on social justice. It was important to talk about social policy in its widest sense rather than seeing education in a vacuum. OECD has shown that fragmented education systems don’t work. The NUT want a return to local control and a coherent system of education coupled with school level autonomy. That was the space where teachers can develop the curriculum with students and the local community. School leadership must be wider than head teachers and can include students. We need to look at how schools are accountable or (better) responsible and trust the professionals. She cautioned that not everything can be evidenced by data. Qualitative indicators were also important and the voice of students must be heard too.