As the cloud of ash shot out into the sky from Eyjafjallajokull my inner geek shot out to catch it on the Internet and online volcano watching has consumed almost all my free time since the eruption.

I’ve been so distracted, in fact, that I almost missed out on the interest that Nick Clegg’s performance on the recent TV debates has stimulated in the Lib Dems. Now, it’s looking like their policies may have some relevance though, so I decided to have an ash-free weekend and do some catching up.

My starting point was Dan’s excellent overview of the manifestos and how similar they are. After reading that, I felt inspired to do a little further reading online and came across this really easy-to-read table comparing the offerings from the various parties on the Keystone education blog.

The most interesting part of the Lib Dem manifesto for me was the proposed end of KS2 tests and the introduction of ‘Teacher Assessment’ instead. I’ll be interested to read more about this over the next week and especially to see exactly how this would be implemented.

I was also interested to be reminded of the Tory proposal to only fund graduates with a 2:2 or above for teacher training. I know it caused a lot of fuss when they announced it but when you put it in context, it’s not such a big deal. Can you imagine any other course or graduate scheme giving funding to people with less than a 2:2? I certainly can’t.

The part of the Labour manifesto that caught my eye was the £10k ‘golden handcuffs’ for the best teachers. The idea of ‘golden handcuffs’ intrigues me for two reasons. Firstly, I wonder about the criteria for choosing the ‘best teachers’. Will heads have the power to nominate their ‘best teachers’ or is it just going to be based on statistics?

The second reason it attracted my attention was that sounded like some kind of unwritten James Bond novel: ‘The Teacher with the Golden Handcuffs’. Maybe he could charge £10,000 a class.

Since everyone from Sebastian Faulks to Charlie Higson seems to be writing new James Bond novels at the moment, maybe that’s what I should do to fill my free time once the elections are over…

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