Education remains one of the basic building blocks of a successful society, and it is one which governments cannot afford to ignore, whatever their political persuasion.

Sadly, education in Bradford has had a chequered history, including the Whitehall intervention which saw it taken out of local authority control and into the hands of a private company and back again after ten years.

While there has been some improvement in our schools over that time, Bradford, by and large, remains stubbornly low in the league tables. But more than mere placings on tables, the greater concern is that some children are not achieving their potential and are leaving school hindered by poor results.

So the injection of cash that will allow struggling pupils to get extra help and tuition to bring them up to scratch in the early days of their secondary education is to be greatly welcomed.

Bradford has been given a greater share of the Government cash than any other West Yorkshire authority, which signals just how serious the problem is. The money will be used to help those children who didn’t attain the desired levels in their final year at primary school and hopefully enable them to catch up to their classmates before the serious business of secondary education begins in earnest.

It is vitally important that children leave school with the necessary qualifications – be they academic or vocational – to allow them to enter into and compete in the job market. Allied with Bradford’s commitment to creating more apprenticeships in a bid to boost youth unemployment, this financial help can only be a good thing.