BBC Mar 10, 2010

Michael Gove has pledged to free schools from "political interference"

The Conservatives are failing to win over voters unsatisfied with Labour's record on education, a poll for the BBC's Newsnight programme suggests.

Of the 865 adults in England who were questioned, 25% said the Conservatives had the best education policies, a drop of 10 percentage points on August 2009.

Twenty-seven per cent said Labour had the best policies, a two-point rise.

But an almost equal number, 26%, said that they did not know, a 10-point increase in the undecided number.

Ten per cent of respondents to the Newsnight poll went for the Liberal Democrats as the party with the best education policies, a drop of five points when compared with last year.

Big election issue?

When asked whether the Labour government had delivered on Tony Blair's famous promise to make "education, education, education" its top priority, 25% of those polled said it had, compared with 28% in August 2009.

Ed Balls says that education is Labour's main priority

Seventy per cent of those questioned said Labour had failed to deliver, up from 67% last year. Five per cent said they did not know.

Observers say that in recent elections, education has not been a make-or-break issue for political parties in the same way that the National Health Service, crime and immigration have been.

However, constraints on public spending could now put education in the spotlight.

None of the main parties have said that they will protect the whole education budget from spending cuts.

Labour has said it will protect spending on schools, but has not ruled out cutting the budget for other areas such as higher education.

On the question of whether Labour had used the investment it has made in education in the most effective way, 26% said it had, a drop from 30% in August 2009, and 67% said it had not, up from 63%.

Choice and control

When asked whether Labour had given parents more choice over where they sent their children to school, 40% of those polled said it had, while 53% disagreed.

The Lib Dems pledge to cut class sizes and raise standards in every school

On the question of whether Labour had created the right balance between central control over schools and local decision-making, 26% said it had while 64% said it had not.

The telephone poll was conducted between 5 and 7 March 2010 by ComRes amongst a demographically representative sample of 865 adults in England aged 18 years and over.

The provision of education is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

You can a watch special edition of Newsnight on education on Wednesday 10 March at 2230 on BBC Two.