Only Brexit and health are bigger issues for parents when considering how to cast their general election vote, a YouGov survey shows.
TES reports more than four in 10 parents say education and school funding will be a key issue for them in deciding how to vote in the 2017 general election, according to a new opinion poll.
A second survey, of teachers, shows that 60% have seen class sizes go up in the past two years.
Both polls were carried out by YouGov and commissioned by the NUT teachers’ union.
In the first poll of 1,012 parents with school-aged children, 43% said that education and school funding will be a key issue in deciding how they vote.
Only Brexit, at 51%, and health outranked education as election issues.
Of those who prioritised education, 83% said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who will “support tackling education and school funding”.
The poll uncovered a high level of awareness about school funding problems, with 68% saying they believed schools were in financial difficulty.
In the second poll of 755 teachers, 60% said class sizes had increased in their school since 2015.
A third said class sizes had remained steady, with just three per cent stating they had decreased.
More than one third (38%) said the number of teaching posts in their school had reduced over the past two years, with 28% saying the number had remained the same, and 17% stating it had increased.
Sixty-two per cent of respondents said their school had lost teaching assistants, and 38% of teachers said the range of subjects available to pupils had decreased since 2015.
Forty-six per cent said curriculum breadth had stayed the same, with nine per cent reporting the subject range had increased.