Thatcher admits an error over education furore

The Prime Minister conceded yesterday that the Conservatives' start to the general election campaign, with the confusion over their plans for education, could have been better handled. But, she said, the Labour Party had fallen at the first fence.

Speaking at Exeter to reporters covering her campaign tour, the Prime Minister was optimistic about Tory chances in the election.

Asked why she thought the Labour Party had made such a good start to the campaign, Mrs Thatcher replied: “Don't you think it is a very good object lesson on what not to do—make a good start and then stumble at the first fence.”

Reacting to criticism of her own later start to the campaign, Mrs Thatcher said it had always been her policy to make it a three-week campaign.

Mrs Thatcher further back-pedalled on her statement early in the campaign that she wanted to go “on and on” , a statement which has been seized upon by Mr Kinnock to suggest that she believed in her own infallibility and would prefer coronation to election.

Asked about the slogan “Ten more years” , which had appeared at the party's rally in Newport on Tuesday night, Mrs Thatcher reacted sharply and said: “It has not been said by me. It is the desire of many people and it is a desire that I am delighted they are demonstrating. But you come up to the election and you submit yourselves to the judgement of the electorate.”

Challenged with a remark which she had allegedly made in May 1977 stating that the Conservatives would have been drummed out of office had they had the level of unemployment at that time Mrs Thatcher said: “May 1977 … a very different world now. Whoever has had to dredge that up must be living in the past. Since then we were elected in 1979 and again in 1983 because people realised our policies were those best able to get unemployment down. No government can guarantee full employment.”

It was when she was asked about the furore over her education policy and the apparent divergence of view between herself and Mr Kenneth Baker, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, that Mrs Thatcher unusually acknowledged an error. She conceded that it would have been better had Mr Baker been at last Friday's press conference, when the confusion arose. She said: “It would have been better had we had Kenneth there right at the start. But it has all been sorted out now.”

The details of the policy permitting schools to opt out of the control of local education authorities were further spelled out at a London press conference yesterday, which they both attended.

Schools wishing to opt out from local authority control will first have to gain the assent of parents by a majority vote in a postal ballot and the backing of their governors before they can submit an application to Mr Baker.

They will be allowed to pay their teachers over the odds if they wish, though they will get no extra help from the state. But they will not be allowed to seek to change their character from, say, comprehensive to grammar for a “few years” after venturing beyond the council umbrella.

Nor, after opting out, will they be allowed immediately to change their intake policies. Introduction of a selective academic test, for instance, would not be permitted until the Secretary of State had agreed that they could adopt a grammar school ethos.

Setting out the ground rules, Mr Baker said that all schools inside and outside the local authority orbit, would have to conform to the new national curriculum that would be laid down after consultations with educational and business interests.

The governors of a school seeking grant-maintained status would have to satisfy him that they were capable of managing its budget competently and delivering high standards.

They would be paid a grant from the DES for each pupil they enrolled and they would be able to pay higher salaries to attract good teachers if they wished. But any money found for this heading would have to come from savings elsewhere in the budget.

“A grant-maintained school would be obliged to retain the existing range of ability intake.”