Letters on education
Yesterday I received a letter in the post from Education Minister Michael Gove. The wording was very flowery, but essentially the message was that the funding that had been allocated to Turin Grove and Gladys Aylward schools in Edmonton as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme is far from being confirmed and may now never be allocated.
Before Parliament went on recess I wrote to Michael Gove pleading with him to announce the funding for the two schools before the summer holidays. He ignored this and instead chose to send the generic letter to all MPs with schools in their constituencies affected by the cuts, which I received yesterday. This is completely unacceptable and extremely unfair.
We already know that Edmonton County School and the Enfield Pupil Referral Unit will no longer have their developments and projects funded, and it seems that there is nothing we can do to reverse this decision. However, because of their impending academy status, Turin Grove and Gladys Aylward didn't have their funding cut, but they didn't have it allocated either.
The money formed part of the Labour Government's attempts to make schools fit for the 21st century in terms of both their buildings and their resources. It is almost vital to transform the schools into academies, but, in spite of this, Michael Gove has decided that we now have to wait until after the Comprehensive Spending Review is published on 20th October.
In today's Enfield Independent, Enfield Council's Cabinet Member for Education and Children's Services, Councillor Ayfer Orhan, has a submission on the letters' page titled "No more cuts to education" which I agree with entirely. She highlights how the Conservative/LibDem coalition government has failed to approve and finalise funding for ANY of the schemes put forward by Enfield Council in the Building Schools for the Future programme.
The Council spent almost £2 million getting the projects up to scratch. They spent the money because there was a promise of a much greater return in funding that would have provided much-needed improvements to the borough's schools. Ayfer Orhan has stated that she will challenge the Government to return the £2 million the council has spent if our local projects are scrapped. I sincerely hope that it doesn't have to come to this.
I will be calling on Michael Gove again to refrain from cutting funding to our schools. I hope that Enfield Southgate MP David Burrowes and Enfield North MP Nick de Bois show some loyalty to our borough and not to their destructive Government by joining me in my attempts to secure as much funding as possible.
You too can join the call to stop the cuts by writing to Michael Gove at the Department for Education, Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BT. If you don't like the cuts that are happening to our public services then you don't have to just sit back and watch them happen. Your voice could make a big difference to the choices the Government makes next.
Before Parliament went on recess I wrote to Michael Gove pleading with him to announce the funding for the two schools before the summer holidays. He ignored this and instead chose to send the generic letter to all MPs with schools in their constituencies affected by the cuts, which I received yesterday. This is completely unacceptable and extremely unfair.
We already know that Edmonton County School and the Enfield Pupil Referral Unit will no longer have their developments and projects funded, and it seems that there is nothing we can do to reverse this decision. However, because of their impending academy status, Turin Grove and Gladys Aylward didn't have their funding cut, but they didn't have it allocated either.
The money formed part of the Labour Government's attempts to make schools fit for the 21st century in terms of both their buildings and their resources. It is almost vital to transform the schools into academies, but, in spite of this, Michael Gove has decided that we now have to wait until after the Comprehensive Spending Review is published on 20th October.
In today's Enfield Independent, Enfield Council's Cabinet Member for Education and Children's Services, Councillor Ayfer Orhan, has a submission on the letters' page titled "No more cuts to education" which I agree with entirely. She highlights how the Conservative/LibDem coalition government has failed to approve and finalise funding for ANY of the schemes put forward by Enfield Council in the Building Schools for the Future programme.
The Council spent almost £2 million getting the projects up to scratch. They spent the money because there was a promise of a much greater return in funding that would have provided much-needed improvements to the borough's schools. Ayfer Orhan has stated that she will challenge the Government to return the £2 million the council has spent if our local projects are scrapped. I sincerely hope that it doesn't have to come to this.
I will be calling on Michael Gove again to refrain from cutting funding to our schools. I hope that Enfield Southgate MP David Burrowes and Enfield North MP Nick de Bois show some loyalty to our borough and not to their destructive Government by joining me in my attempts to secure as much funding as possible.
You too can join the call to stop the cuts by writing to Michael Gove at the Department for Education, Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BT. If you don't like the cuts that are happening to our public services then you don't have to just sit back and watch them happen. Your voice could make a big difference to the choices the Government makes next.