Posted on Wednesday 14th Sep 2016
Education Secretary Justine Greening says she will not be pushing forward with moves to scrap the parent governor role from schools in England.
She told the Commons Education Committee parent governors often played a "vital role" in school improvement.
The proposal to remove the need for academies to have elected parents on governing bodies emerged in March in plans to make all schools academies.
It sparked an outcry from MPs, schools and teaching unions.
Answering a question about the issue from Labour's Stephen Timms, Ms Greening said: "One way we can ensure that schools who are doing a less good job improve is getting parents more involved.
"Often, and I've seen this as a constituency MP, when schools turn around it's when parents become more engaged and more invested in the school's success and that helps build the school from the outside as well as the hard work teachers are doing on the inside.
"It doesn't happen overnight, it takes years to do but parents are part of how success gets delivered so I do not think we should proceed with that."
The planned removal of the parent governor role, in the Education for All White Paper, was widely criticised, with Jeremy Corbyn calling it an attack on parents.
David Cameron defended the plans, saying it did not mean that parents would be removed from governing bodes.
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