If there was any doubt that our u-turn prone Education Secretary had covert plans to use the roll out of academies and free schools to privatise the last wholly state-owned public service- the schools system- they were quashed yesterday evening with the leaking of explosive Department for Education document. It is understood that Gove wants to turbocharge his academies and free schools programme by allowing banks, hedge funds and specialist consortia to buy out council-run schools and run them as purely commercial entities. Furthermore, privatised schools will be able to secure loans against school buildings, and they will be able to sell ‘ surplus’ land on the edges of their sites to developers. And if that doesn’t sound like a recipe for a capitalist free for all, I don’t know what does.
Needless to say, teaching unions have condemned the secret plans. Strangely, the line has been adopted that commercial operators would be likely to cut corners and deliver a lower quality education. I cannot imagine where they got that idea from(!) The Swedish free schools system, upon which the policies are modeled, was subject to intensive asset stripping by for-profit groups, to the point that one operator has collapsed as Southern Cross (a care home operator which sold its buildings, rented them back, and buckled when increases were higher than expected) did in the UK. Inevitably, playgrounds will be chipped away at when there is little economic benefit to school owners (and the term ‘school owners’ is a very peculiar one to type) to maintain large empty fields. My metaphor is that if you are given £50, then there is little reason not to deposit it in the bank (or building society or credit union). And yet that is what Gove imagines will not happen.
Not only would physical education suffer (I’m still too badly hurt by my experiences of PE to be very concerned by that threat) but expensive, resource-heavy subjects such as the Sciences and Music will be cut back. And as the predictable union-busting, pennypinching and efficiency drives occur, the teaching profession will slowly deteriorate together with student attainment rates. The Government’s ability to correct the situation within the system is limited as it has surrendered most of its controls over schools when academy status is awarded.
Eduction is the key to a thriving society and economy. Despite inhospitable conditions, this country enjoys a large, talented community of teachers and other education professionals. On the whole, we’ve good school buildings. There are problems, particularly with the poor schooling environments in the inner cities, the effect of tiny catchment areas and religious segregation, and above all ridiculous rules which prevent schools properly tackling bad behaviour. But these are not unsolvable, by any means. What would be unsolvable is the problem of a deregulated, privatised and fragmented system of edubusinesses which are allowed to deteriorate and be asset-stripped.
Thank goodness this policy is merely under consideration. But beware it might just reach the statute books, unless the Liberal Democrats stick to their current position on free schools and academies. We’re relying on Nick Clegg.
