I PUT forward a 10-point plan for education in this country.

Recruit far more primary and secondary school teachers so that class sizes can be reduced to 20 pupils. A dramatic improvement in educational standards would result.

Raise teachers' basic salaries so that the chaotic system of responsibility allowance and bonuses could be abolished.

Abolish the national curriculum - give teachers the freedom to teach and not spend hours on useless administration duties. Excessive bureaucracy is a major cause of low morale in the teaching profession.

Abolish Ofsted! All secondary school inspections can be carried out by LEA officials.

Make secondary comprehensive schools each specialise - in say, art, music, science, maths, engineering, foreign languages etc. Employ a far greater number of specialist teachers.

Expand athletic and sports training.

Introduce greater discipline - especially in secondary schools.

Provide far more cash to maintain school buildings and purchase equipment. Schools have been starved of cash for decades!

Give financial support to 16 to 18-year-olds in full-time education.

Abolish college and university tuition fees! Restore and, indeed, improve student maintenance grants. Students should not have to face £10,000-£12,000 worth of debts when they graduate. I am appalled that New Labour has imposed this terrific financial burden on the student population.

I am totally opposed to Tory threats to savagely reduce university incomes.

Education is of great interest to most of us.

For several decades now, education at all levels has suffered from inadequate financial resources. We have seen school and college buildings neglected; pupils short of equipment; teachers and lecturers underpaid; thousands of potential university students refusing to enrol because of fear of going into appalling debt.

Any government worthy of its name would have rectified matters. The Tory Governments of Thatcher and John Major did not do so.

Regrettably, neither has New Labour!