The U.K. government announced last month it plans to turn all U.K. schools into academies by 2020, meaning the schools would fall under government rather than local authority control – with outside sponsors, or “academy trusts,” dealing with their day-to-day running. Critics say the plan, unveiled in a white paper called "Educational Excellence Everywhere," will force schools to become more like businesses, removing pay-scale safeguards and allowing the recruitment of unqualified teaching staff.
Of the U.K.’s secondary schools – the equivalent of high schools in the U.S. – 2,075 out of 3,381 are already academies, with a large increase in schools opting for academy status since the Conservatives came to power. “Converters,” high-achieving schools looking to gain more autonomy, make up the majority of these schools, with the rest consisting of sponsored schools that have been “rescued” from failing. Campaigns from a number of quarters against this forced academization are now gathering pace.
“Many schools, including the overwhelming majority of primaries, have made a positive choice to remain maintained by their local authority,” says Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the U.K.’s largest teachers union. “This White Paper’s proposals to turn all schools into academies will abolish that choice and instead impose an authoritarian central government diktat on schools. So much for ‘localism,’ so much for ‘choice,’ so much for ‘autonomy,’ so much for ‘democracy.’ Small schools in particular will lose their identity, and rural schools face an uncertain future as multi-academy trusts will pick and choose which schools they consider viable,” she said.
Blower insisted it is not a cost-effective measure to make schools into academies. “It will cost the taxpayer a fortune to convert all schools into academies, and all based on no evidence that academies improve the education of children,” she added. “[MP] Nicky Morgan is gambling on an irrational approach which supposes that the problems of teacher shortages and the quality and availability of teacher education can be dealt with simply by ratcheting up the policies that have created those problems in the first place. The government’s priorities are simply wrong. They are wrong for education, wrong for teachers and wrong for children and young people.”
David Gilchrist of the Anti-Academies Alliance, another group that is adamantly against British schools' academization, told Occupy.com: “They have no evidence to back up the claim that academies improve educational standards – in fact the opposite is true. They are comparing schools that weren't doing well (sponsored academies) with all schools. It's not a valid comparison: the comparison they should give is between schools that weren't doing well that remained with the local authority and sponsored academies. If they do the correct comparison it shows that local authority schools are actually doing better than comparable schools that are academies.”
Gilchrist is particularly concerned about the loss of employment rights under the new school-by-school autonomy. “It is a complete bonfire of pay and conditions. There will be no national agreement and schools or trusts will have to negotiate and set pay rates and other benefits school by school. Look out for huge turmoil if this goes through,” he warned.
John Roan secondary school in Lewisham, South London, recently elected to convert to an academy. But Jill Austen, who is part of the campaign to try and stop the process, also said “there is no evidence that the academies plan will improve educational standards.”
“There is nothing inherent in academies that would make them better educationally than a local authority school. In fact, there are many aspects that would make them worse such as the ability to hire unqualified teachers, poor treatment of teachers [resulting in] a high staff turnover, and a lack of accountability. Add to that the questions over finances and it’s easy to see that this is not for the benefit of our children,” she added.
“I wasn’t particularly surprised at the Conservatives pushing this through but I feel it will backfire on them. Such an extreme position with nothing tangible backing it up is bound to cause a backlash. Within the Conservative party itself there are unsupportive MPs and the Labour party is speaking out strongly against it. Lucy Powell, the shadow education minister, spoke powerfully at a recent National Union of Teachers rally with a huge attendance of staff, parents and children.”
Another voice against the academies, Lynn, who preferred not to disclose her surname, is a primary school teacher and a parent. “Academies are able to employ unqualified teachers,” Lynn told Occupy.com. “I do not see how this will provide consistent and excellent teaching in primary. As a teacher, I do not feel that performance-related pay will encourage me any more than my own desire to teach to the best of my ability. To have pay withheld by a head that I perhaps do not get along with seems an awful situation.”
Lynn is also worried about the unpredictable hours, especially as a parent. “I may be asked to do much that I don't do now – and I may not get any extra pay for it.”
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