'There's no mandate for this!' Ben Shephard slams Education Secretary over grammar schools
EDUCATION SECRETARY Justine Greening was put on the spot by Good Morning Britain's Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway today over controversial plans to lift the ban on new grammar schools in the UK.
Justine Greening: We need a diverse range of schools
Prime Minister Theresa May has sparked impassioned debate over the divisive proposals, which are yet to be unveiled in full but have already sparked huge backlash, with critics claiming the schools are "elitist".
Speaking to Greening in a live interview, Shephard, 41, read out a message from a viewer; asking why money being spent on the review can't instead be put into fixing the existing problems in the education system.
"The proposals you're going to put forward are going to cost money; money that could be spent on problems that [the viewer] is taking about," he added.
"Rather than segregating children at 11, why not put money into something that needs to be done? And there's no mandate for this! Schools are still trying to deal with what Michael Gove put in, before Nicky Morgan!"
Ben Shephard went in on Justine Greening on GMB
Justine Greening held her own in the discussion
Kate Garraway was also firm with her
Rather than segregating children at 11, why not put money into something that needs to be done?
Justine replied: "There are still one million children who aren't in good schools. There are children in communities where there are no good schools around them at all. We need to open up on debate on what it'll take to change that.
"Wait to see what our proposals are, but I don't think it's tenable to raise concerns on grammars and then [say] we shouldn't even open up a debate on how we can make it work."
Kate chimed in: "Nobody would be against debate, but the point Ben made is teachers are struggling to deal with changes Michael Gove brought in and Nicky Morgan saw through.
"We've seen an enormous overhaul: parents are confused because each Education Secretary says 'this is the answer', children are in the middle and teachers are exhausted.
The pair asked Justine why money can't be spent on more urgent matters
"Why not spend the money from this review on sorting what you said was right last year?"
Justine, who was herself educated at a state school, re-iterated: "There are still parts of our country where parents don't have the choice of a good school near them and they're missing out.
"What is it going to take to change that? Our proposals are on how we think we should change that."
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.