British government introduces plans for market-driven school system

[Hannah Bell]

The Conservative-Liberal government has begun fast tracking an Academies Bill through Parliament. Together with an Education and Children’s Bill in the autumn, the new arrangements will lay the basis for a market-driven, competitive system of schools, free from Local Authority control and increasingly run by the private sector.

Such a system presages a severe deterioration in teachers’ pay and conditions and the creation of profoundly unequal education for Britain’s children.

The Academies Bill, which is set to become law this summer, will allow a planned 500 secondary and 1,700 primary schools to apply for academy status for September and leave Local Authority control. For the first time, primary schools will be able to apply to become academies.

The Academies Bill allows all schools judged “outstanding” by Ofsted, the government inspectorate, to apply directly to the Education Secretary for “academy status”. They will be funded by central not local government on the basis of pupil numbers. While still described as “state” schools, they will function as privatised entities, free to set up partnerships with the private sector, and determine their own curriculum, pay rates and admissions policies, based on student “aptitudes”. They will also be free from routine Ofsted inspections. Operating as private concerns, academies are exempt from normal rules of public procurement whereby outsourcing contracts must be advertised and subject to competitive bidding. They are also exempt from freedom of information legislation.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/acad-j09.shtml


something happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, mr. "i love charter schools"?


- no local control
- no public records
- hello walmart international education, inc.!