The early summer’s alarming stories of massive privatisation in the education sector have not come to pass. It seems there has been some back-peddling, a small but significant retreat.
Yet there are still some alarming elements in the education white paper. It talks about bringing the private sector in to run local education authorities and schools in certain cases. It mentions, for instance, the ‘full or partial outsourcing of LEA services’. In rather more baroque language, something called ‘an innovative brokerage service for schools’ and ‘an effective partnership board’ also crop up.
This sort of thing sounds rather familiar and there is something of a precedent in the recent, disastrous history of the further education sector. In 1992 the Tories introduced a lovely scheme under the Orwellian title of ‘incorporation’. This involved FE colleges being run by principals (some of whom now grandiosely call themselves chief executives) and a few of their chums on college boards.The subsequent abuse, resulting from the concentration of immense power in very few hands, is well documented.
Talk of outsourcing and an increasing roll for the private sector will raise the fear of history repeating itself, particularly in view of the reported enthusiasm for incorporation, and contempt for LEAs, among certain government advisors.
The proposed radical expansion in the number of faith schools has also caused considerable disquiet. For the life of me, I cannot think from where this proposal could possibly have sprung. There are many good faith schools which are a positive boon to the communities they serve – I have three in my constituency.
But the white paper delves into new territory. Such a major expansion could threaten to divide certain communities along religious lines. In some areas, such communities are already experiencing profound tensions.The possibility of splitting up children because of their religious backgrounds is something that now, more than at any time since the 1902 Education Act, we would want to avoid.
Finally, there is the planned mass expansion of specialist schools. Again a school in my area has just won specialist status and this will undoubtedly be a good thing for the students there, many of whom come from relatively poor backgrounds.
Nevertheless, let’s look at the figures. In return for raising £50,000 in sponsorship and preparing various plans and targets, a new specialist school will receive a £100,000 capital grant and additional revenue funding of £123 per pupil. This is not peanuts. There are currently 685 specialist schools; the government plans to increase their numbers to 1,000 by 2003 and 1,500 by 2005. This has raised the widespread fear that specialist schools will become grammars of the future; the remaining schools will become secondary moderns. The white paper itself comments: ‘Many, but not all, struggling schools are situated in the most deprived areas.’ Just the sort of schools, one would have thought, which would find it perhaps impossible to raise the initial £50,000 of sponsorship money. But far more alarming is the prospect of schools being able to select large slices of their intakes. Bitter memories of selection remain and always will for those, including members of my own family, who feel they were discarded because of failing the notorious 11-plus.
Both academic and social selection have already started to creep back among certain former grant maintained schools. The ‘Volvo test’ has become infamous. For the uninitiated, this involves a school planting lookouts in the car park on open evenings to see what sort of vehicle families arrive in. Presumably a clapped-out builder’s van goes down less well than a new Volvo.
From my own experience, the government has made a real impact on primary and secondary education of which it can be proud. Nevertheless, this white paper, in all its vagueness, may be pointing in a direction which some of us would find bitterly disappointing.