Analysis
Brave New World
Ray Barker takes a look at the government's proposals S
o, here we are after an election with a new department, back to being about Education‚ ˆ with a new team. Michael Gove is at the helm, with Nick Gibb supporting him.
If you look at the Liberal Democrat (LD) and the Conservative manifestos, there was not much that either had in common, but trying hard you can find these points: • Removal of political control - more freedom for schools with accountability
• Focus on teachers in the classroom and their responsibilities
• Pupil premium for disadvantaged - focus on raising standards
• Different kind of national curriculum (some traditional subjects)
• 3Rs with diagnostic testing • Cut quangos as much as possible • Focus on vocational at FE • Special schools to stay in some format • Sure Start continues as early intervention • Nursery education grows
So what can we expect? Michael Gove has now announced his initial priorities after discussion with his new companions: • "improving literacy, raising pupil attainment, extending parental choice, freeing teachers from bureaucracy, improving discipline and closing the widening gap between the richest and the
poorest should be our shared goal."
• Schools to be given the freedom to become academies - "This will be the focus of the legislation we hope to bring forward later this month with the intention that schools could become academies by this September.” (LDs had said they wanted academies to come under local authorities while the Conservatives said they should be independent.)
• Free schools being small and with small class sizes (as are the LDs)
• Pupil premium (no funding plans announced yet though)
Other priorities are to: • give schools greater freedom over the curriculum • "radically reform the exam system" so that all schools can offer a wider range of qualifications support teachers by giving them more powers "to ensure higher standards of discipline".
uwww.besa.org.uk
Education Today news round-up The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said that building work on hundreds of schools may be halted if the government's "free schools policy" is to be fully implemented. There is not enough money to finish Labour's £55bn school renewal programme and fund free schools, it claims.
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www.education-today.co.uk
At the heart of the previous government's education reforms, the Building Schools for the Future programme pledged to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England by 2020. At the time of going to press, the government had yet to make any decisions on which projects would go ahead.
With "free schools" and more academies central to the government's reforms, Michael Gove has already written to schools inviting applications for independent status. He claims that, so far, more than 1000 schools in England have shown an interest in becoming an academy .
Reuters news agency explains the government's position: "Academy status means schools opting out of local authority control and becoming independent, but state-funded, institutions. Originally reserved for the most poorly performing schools, Gove is now extending this privilege as a right to 2,600 top rated primary, secondary and special schools. Other schools can apply for the change, and Gove intends his renamed Department for Education to do all it can to help them." In itself a 'radical shake-up' of the education system, opinion is divided on whether the free schools and academy programme represents a 'dismantling of state education', creating a 'two- tier' system, or whether it will indeed give teachers the financial and curricular freedom they need to improve results in the classroom.
June 2010
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