To save you the trouble of all that searching, here’s what the Green Party election manifesto has to say about education, and about environmental / climate / sustainability / global / etc education – see text in bold.
A Fairer, Greener Education System
Education should be about inspiring a love of learning and ensuring that every young person can reach their potential. Yet too many children are struggling to achieve in an education system that operates like a production line rather than valuing children’s unique individual qualities.
Schools play an essential role in ensuring that all children have an equal chance to thrive. We must work towards ending child poverty and opening up opportunities to all. No child should be left behind. For Greens, education is a common good that benefits society as a whole so it should be publicly funded and available to everybody, free of charge, at every stage of life. We will continue to support parents in educating children in settings other than at school.
Green MPs would push for an education system that:
• Is fully inclusive, with better funded support for special educational needs and all children provided with a free school meal.
• Supports every higher education student with the restoration of grants and the end of tuition fees.
• Reduces the stress in our education system by ending high-stakes, formal testing at primary and secondary schools and by abolishing OFSTED.
Early years
Pre-school education should be focused on play and on supporting young children to safely explore the world around them. It can also assist families to access work and other opportunities.
Greens MPs will advocate:
• For £1.4bn per year to be invested by local authorities in Sure Start Centres.
• In negotiation with the sector, to extend the outgoing government’s offer of childcare to 35 hours per week from nine months.
Schools
Over a decade of funding cuts, assessment targets and a teacher recruitment crisis have resulted in larger class sizes, fewer educational visits and arts and vocational subjects dropped from the curriculum.
Elected Greens will:
• Advocate for an increase in school funding, with an £8bn investment in schools that would include £2bn for a pay uplift for teachers.
• Ensure that every school building is safe for children by investing £2.5bn a year to tackle the RAAC concrete scandal and provide the funding needed for schools to be well maintained and fit for purpose.
• Review assessment targets in schools so that arts and vocational subjects are treated equally within the curriculum, children are supported to play and learn outdoors, and every child can learn about the climate and biodiversity crisis to equip them for the challenges ahead.
• Ensure effective delivery of the new Natural History GCSE.
• Move academies and free schools into local authority control, removing charitable status from private schools and charging full VAT on fees. Private school places for children with special education needs will not be subject to VAT. This will be an interim measure while public-sector capacity is built.
• Retain a full, evidence-based and ageappropriate programme of Relationships, Sex and Health Education, including LGBTIQA+ content and resources.
• Protect provision of free school breakfast clubs for all primary school pupils.
Special educational needs
Green MPs will push for £5bn to be invested in special needs (SEND) provision within mainstream schools. This means that all schools will have fully accessible buildings and specially trained teachers, and local councils will have the funds to properly support SEND students at school and in getting to school.
Child health and wellbeing
Green MPs will:
• Fully restore the role of the school nurse, ensuring that all schools have access to an on-site medical professional.
• Give children and students at all state-funded schools and colleges access to a qualified counsellor.
Post-16 and Further Education
The world of work is changing fast. Fewer young people will experience only one career and workplace in their lives. Education and training must be accessible, and better designed to support lifelong learning.
Green MPs will push for:
• A £3bn increase in funding for sixth-form education over the next parliamentary term, and a £12bn investment in skills and lifelong learning for further education.
• The restoration of the Education Maintenance Allowance to financially support young people to extend their studies after the age of 16.
Higher Education
Marketisation has been disastrous for Higher Education, changing the relationships between students and academic faculty, pushing universities into financial crisis, and burdening a whole generation of students with debts so high that they are ruining their life chances.
We would fully fund every higher education student, restoring maintenance grants and scrapping undergraduate tuition fees. Our longterm plans also include seeking to cancel the injustice of graduate debt.
Elected Greens will work with the higher education sector to tackle the challenges posed by changes to employer contributions for the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS).
(In Wales, Education is devolved to the Welsh Government.)
Other
Better educate the population about food and health and build links between farms, schools and the wider community.
Schools to involve children in growing, preparing and cooking food, as part of the core curriculum, so that they recognise and understand how to use basic fresh produce.
Protect school playing fields from development through rigorous planning controls.