THE Tories published an Education and Adoption Bill yesterday, setting out plans to academise a further 1,000 schools by 2020.
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan warned that all schools deemed to be ‘failing’ or ‘coasting’ will be forced into becoming academies. The current requirement for potential academy sponsors to consult with the local community, including parents, will be scrapped.
The bill ‘will sweep away the bureaucratic and legal loopholes previously exploited by those who put ideological objections above the best interests of children,’ she claimed. Academy chain leader Steve Lancashire, chief executive of REAch2, which from September will run 51 academies, called it a ‘very positive step forward’.
But National Association of Head Teachers leader Russell Hobby said: ‘Parents who have campaigned against the opaque and centralised process of academisation will be dismayed to see themselves dismissed as obstacles to be eliminated.’
National Union of Teachers leader Christine Blower called the pledge to convert up to 1,000 schools ‘as irrational as it is impractical’.
Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said: ‘Perhaps one of the most disturbing elements of the Bill is the provision which appears to be a direct attack on the fundamental right of parents to have a say in the type of education they want for their child. Abusing the legislative process to seek to gag critics and stifle opposition is a chilling theme running through far too many of this government’s legislative plans and we all should be concerned when governments abuse their power to attack fundamental rights and freedoms.’
ATL past National President, Hank Roberts, told News Line: ‘So much for parental choice. It was always hypocritical nonsense. The only real choice these people believe in is the choice that money can buy. Their plan is and always was to forcibly hand all state schools, schools that are our property paid for by us, over to academy chains.
‘These chains will ultimately be run for profit but still of course paid for by us the taxpayers. The taxpayers, let me remind you, are not the super rich. As we have seen, they get away with paying a lower rate of tax than their cleaners as Warren Buffett pointed out. Strikes and direct action will be necessary but we should also highlight this as an assault on the basics of democracy. We should continue to have secret ballots of parents to show across the country the true feelings of the people against this attempted privatisation of state education.’
