The so-called ‘Great Debate’ during the winter and spring of 1976/77 had given education unusual national attention. Any socialist education policy must maximise the provision for working-class children. For the first action of the Thatcher Government was to repeal the Act compelling local councils to submit plans for secondary reorganisation, and the 1980 Education Act contains many measures—on parental choice, school meals and transport, the asssisted places scheme—which will increase noticeably the inequality of provision. The space and teaching resources that this has created within primary schools can be adapted to provide full-time nursery education. The organisation and control of institutions of higher education continuing difficulties. Labour must use the flexibility which demography brings to strengthen initial, and increase in-service, training, giving it a greater coherence by encouraging a more organic relationship between schools and training institutions. Again there will be regional inequalities as Labour and Tory authorities have pursued different strategies.