Education;Education;Education!

Its a measure of the money that the Government is pumping into schools when official City Council figures highlight that Wolverhampton Schools at the 1st of April 2003 had more than £4m locked away in their reserves.

Councillor Phil Bateman said " We seem to be a very long way away from those wicked Conservative Governments that were closing schools, starving them of revenue and capital, and the only word that meant anything was 'cut'.

Cut budgets, cut staff, cut schools, those were the days of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and their City cousins residing here in Wolverhampton who were all enthusiastic proponents of belt tightening and axe wielding.

Now we see Education in Wolverhampton on the up, with better GCE results and new developments at schools right across the City. I understand that schools in Wolverhampton expect to see £3.0m of those reserved spent during 2004. Labour has certainly been good for education in this City."