Hampshire's Children Are Not Getting The Start They Deserve

5.57.59pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 11th Apr 2005

Hampshire's Children Are Not Getting The Start They Deserve

Hampshire MEP and Eastleigh Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Chris Huhne today put the focus on Hampshire's poor track record of above average primary school class sizes.

"All the evidence is that young children particularly benefit from personal attention, which improves their learning and opportunities later in life. If we want to give our children the start they deserve, we have to cut class sizes" said Mr Huhne.

The Liberal Democrat proposals to cut primary school class sizes, announced today as part of the national education manifesto, would particularly benefit the county because of our above average class sizes, he said.

"At present, Hampshire has 26.5 children on average per class for the key young group of 5-7 year old children that need most attention. This is even above the English average of 25.7, and 420 young children are in classes with more than 30 kids.

"We are proposing to hire 21,000 more teachers over the life of a parliament to get class sizes for this young group down to 20. That is a cut of nearly a quarter in Hampshire, and would enormously improve attainment later on" said Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne said that the county's schools would also benefit from a cut in class size for the 7 to 11 group doing key stage 2, where the average class size now is 28 against a national average of 27.2. The Liberal Democrat proposal is to cut class sizes for this group to 25, a fall of a little more than 10 per cent in Hampshire.

The Liberal Democrats are proposing to pay for the increase in teaching staff by axing the Child Trust Fund to give a saving of £1.5 billion a year. "The fund is not the best way of helping children" said Mr Huhne. "It is much better to give children opportunities by concentrating on the early years which determine later success".