The government has stated its intention to have 200 Academies up and running by 2010. Here are five good reasons why they should be opposed by socialists. 1. Academies benefit the few at the expense of the many
It is claimed that Academies will meet the needs of pupils in socially disadvantaged areas. But there is no guarantee that they will not disproportionately admit pupils from more socially advantaged backgrounds (as Tony Blair has urged), or those with more educationally demanding parents.
There is already evidence that some Academies are not admitting or excluding more challenging pupils. In consequence, Academies are tending to cream off academically more successful pupils at the expense of neighbouring schools, thus undermining attempts to
create equitable local networks of comprehensive
schools.
On average each new
Academy costs £25 million,
twice the cost of an average
comprehensive
Academies thus deprive
other comprehensive
schools of funding which
could be shared equally
among schools for the benefit of all pupils.
And under the Building
schools for the future' policy
LEAs are being bribed
financially to adopt
Academies as the preferred model. 2. Academies are a form of privatisation
They enable private business people and companies to take control of state schools, including selecting a majority of the governing body and thus controlling the appointment, promotion and working conditions of teachers, while being heavily subsidised by public money.
They are a means by which Church organisations, including religious fundamentalists, can extend their influence in the state school system.
Parents, pupils and staff in Conisbrough and Denaby, near Doncaster fought a successful campaign last year against their local comprehensive Northcliffe being taken over by car dealing "creationist' Sir Peter Vardy to add to his chain of Academies.
(See their website
http://www.cadpag.pwp.bluey
onder.co.uk/nav.htm)
Academies open the door
to being run in the future by
private companies for
profit. Private schools are
also being urged by government to sponsor and run
Academies.
3. Academies are
unaccountable
Non-sponsor-appointees
are a minority on Academy
governing bodies.
Academies are subject to
private school legislation
and are therefore not
accountable to elected local
government. The and Science will not reveal sponsors' financial arrangements because of commercial confidentiality. 4. Academies threaten trade unionism Academy sponsors can refuse to recognise the trade unions of their employees because Academies are established under private school legislation. 5. Academies say the solutions lie with business not teachers
Academies are based on the notion that the solution to problems in education lies with the private sector bringing 'vision, commitment, and a record of success from outside the state school system' (Tony Blair, TES 2 April 2004), rather than with releasing the creativity of teachers and other education workers.
Academies are going to be a big issue this coming year.
The NUT needs to launch a major public campaign against the policy of Academies as a fundamental threat to an equitable and publicly-run comprehensive school system, uniting
trade unionists, parents,
educationists, politicians
and all committed to comprehensive education.
Resistance readers should
use these arguments to convince fellow
whether your trade
unions or in local Respect
branches to get involved in
or launch local campaigns to
stop the government's plans
going ahead. fallen substantially: per capita spending dropped by 33% between 1989 and 1996.
New Labour too has presided over a steady reduction in real terms spending on HE and student support, with the reduction and abolition of the maintenance grant and the introduction of tuition fees, which are due to increase sharply with top-up fees from September 2006.
Figures researched by the Association of University Teachers show that public spending on HE and student support fell by over 7% in the ten years to 2003-4, and fell as a share of Gross Domestic Product from almost 1.1% to 0.78%. In that same period spending on HE rose by 25% to £6.8 billion, while student support fell by 56% to £1.6 billion.
The UK is one of the lowest spenders on HE among the wealthier (OECD) countries -well below the US, Korea, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands and Hungary.
The British HE sector spent £15.6 billion in 2002-3, with just 40% of this (£6.1 billion) coming from the public sector through HE funding bodies, and more than 20% coming through "other government" spending, including £640m in research funds, much of which goes to a relatively
small elite group of universities.
The amount funnelled from the public purse through HE
funding bodies was matched by
non-government funding, including private fees, charities and
industry.
The heavy reliance on student
fees, and the abolition of the student grant have effectively
turned the student into a paying
"customer," and the strong
focus on 'employability' has also studies have shifted in emphasis from the more theoretical and academic approaches to the more skills-based Media Production.
However the changed financial and economic situation of students also impacts upon teaching and learning in other ways: students struggling to cope with academic work face the additional pressure of paying annual fees - which can prove a substantial issue in terms of retaining students.
The "widening of participation" is drawing in increased numbers of students, including many from an academic level and background which would not previously have brought them to a University. Skills-based
Many students included in this wider recruitment are attracted to the more skillsbased courses and those which appear to offer most immediate prospects of employability.
But alongside the widening of the scope of recruitment has come increasing pressure to
ensure that students complete the course - and steadily rising
expectations on the proportion
of students who achieve
degrees.
With rising student numbers
and reduced entry requirements
on the one hand, but a continually falling spend on teaching
and resources per head of students on the other, there is a
widening gap between the official rhetoric of "excellence" in
teaching standards and the
actual experience of both teachers and students in many
courses.
The market approach to
higher education - in which the