The Liberal Democrats have unveiled a ‘Five Point Plan’ aimed at teachers and parents.

The front page of the Lib Dem manifesto states our commitment on education, to protect education funding from nursery to 19.

The Liberal Democrats are the only party to guarantee the protection of per pupil funding in real terms over the next five years.

The Liberal Democrat five point commitment for teachers and parents will:

– Provide an additional £2.5bn of funding for 2-19yr-olds by 2020; protecting per pupil education spending in real terms over the next parliament and increasing the education budget as a whole.

– Guarantee all teachers in state-funded schools will be fully qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) by September 2016.

– Establish the Royal College of Teachers to oversee QTS and professional development. And support the Teach First programme to attract high calibre graduates into teaching, in particular in STEM subjects.

– Establish a new National Leadership Institute to promote high-quality leadership targeting the most challenging schools in the UK.

– Get politics out of the classroom. We will give teachers more freedom over what they can teach by introducing a minimum curriculum entitlement – a slimmed down core national curriculum, which will be taught in all state-funded schools. As well as establish an Independent Educational Standards Authority (ESA) to remove ministerial interference in curriculum content and exam standards.

In Coalition the Liberal Democrats stopped the Conservatives cutting the schools budget. The scale of Conservative cuts in their plans is equivalent to axing four starter salary teachers in every school in England.