Thank you, Seumas Milne, for placing into words exactly what i’ve been thinking these long dark months of Michael Gove’s stint as secretary of state for education (Gove is not only a bungler, he’s a destructive ideologue, 13 February). Further, though, has anyone else thought throughout the long-term implications of his wrecking-ball policies
Imagine a future where state-funded education has ceased to be a countrywide, integrated endeavour, where the commercial and other vital needs of our country as an entire can now not be met through an informed and enterprising general population, for the reason that majority of colleges are run to make profits for globally distant corporations instead of the purposes of individual children.
How would we even start to compete with countries in Europe, nearly all of which still hold to a “national” educational project, with the fractured strategy to local education Gove has installed place on our behalf: free schools with very little checks and balances from local, democratically elected bodies; academies with unsustainable funding i locate it baffling to look our hitherto hugely successful system being systematically dismantled with huge implications for the industrial way forward for our country. What’s in it for the coalition, i ponder
Joyce Massé
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
• While we believe Margaret Pelling (Letters, 15 February) that the coalition has lead the way for the privatisation of the NHS, she shouldn’t be reassured that education is safe, and there are “no commercial interests waiting greedily in the wings” to take it over. Seumas Milne two days earlier reported a leaked document that prepares for the “reclassification of academies to the private sector”; he cites one such commercial company already involved in academy schools, the American K-12.
Our research found that private sponsorship has been integral to academy schools since their inception. Cambridge Education Associates (owned by the Mott MacDonald management consultancy) was handed control of a school in 2003. The Reed Employment agency, Amey, WS Atkins, Capita, Nord Anglia, Group 4 (with the Tribal Group), Jarvis, Serco and Ensign are just some of the for-profit companies involved as “partners” in academies and “free” schools. The Swedish commercial companies Kunskapsskolan and IES are planning to take over chains of UK schools. The “commercial interests” in education aren’t anyt just waiting inside the wings, they are already there.
Professor Deborah Philips
University of Brighton
Professor Garry Whannel
University of Bedfordshire
• One of Michael Gove’s main aims have been to make the English education system “world class”, but my colleagues abroad tell me he has turned it into a global joke, with the debacle over the Ebacc. We want a democratic approach to developing policy where teachers, employers, students and fogeys are consulted before public pronouncements are made. The time, money and resources which have been spent responding to Ebacc must have gone towards coping with students’ learning needs.
The conclusion to be drawn from Gove’s bungling is that government policy has become the largest obstacle to improving standards in education.
Professor Frank Coffield
Institute of Education
