DAVID CAMERON described the decision to axe Building Schools For The Future as “the right, responsible thing” when he visited Liverpool yesterday.
He said: “Everyone wants to see new school building go ahead and there will be under this Government.
“But we inherited a situation with BSF where schools faced 50% cuts in capital spending but failed to see where they were, where they would fall.
“We are trying to do the right, responsible thing and show those projects we can go ahead with and those we cannot. The last Government treated people like fools.”
Outside Parliament yesterday, hundreds of teachers, parents and children protested at Education Secretary Michael Gove’s decision to axe the BSF programme, including projects at 26 Liverpool secondaries.
Among Liverpool teachers who travelled to Westminster was David Knee, from Childwall’s St Francis Xavier College, who said he believed it was still possible to force a U-turn which would save rebuilding schemes.
The NASUWT member added: “Pupils are being taught in temporary buildings and many built in the 1960s, some with leaking roofs, which are coming to the end of their serviceable lives.
“These schools are going through another review, which Mr Gove has set up, but we think that will delay things even further, which means pupils and teachers will be suffering.” Speaking at the rally, which was also attended by other trade union members, school governors and council officials, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, branded the move a “draconian decision”.
He said: “It is hard to avoid the conclusion the Government’s policies are more about ideology than necessity, and nowhere is that more the case than in education.
“The coalition seems to have made a clear choice about what its education priorities are and where the resources should go.
“Not to providing decent schools for all, with good facilities and modern buildings, but to a massive expansion of academies and the creation of so-called free schools, carried out at breakneck speed, with next to no consultation.
“The consequences could be devastating. The most vulnerable children in the most disadvantaged communities could lose out.”
