The task of socialists is to understand changes in society as the expression of class conflict and class interests and this should hold true in all cases. There are times, however, when the impact of one individual is so powerful, a Thatcher or a Blair, that it is a temptation to see unfolding events as the result of one bad man or woman. Today, Education Minister Michael Gove is that kind of man. He stands exposed as a villain, a fool, an opinionated right-wing enemy of the people single-handedly determined to destroy the British state education system.
Gove’s utter determination to drive through his ‘free’ school and academies programme, in defiance of parents, pupils, teachers and communities, is breathtaking. His most recent ‘hostile takeover’ is of Roke primary school in Croydon. The governors of the school have been warned to either deliver it into the hands of the Harris Federation of Academies or be dismissed. Last year Gove ignored the wishes of 94% of parents and took Downhills primary school in Haringey out of local education authority (LEA) control to hand it to the same federation of the millionaire Christian carpet dealer.
This Gove is a caricature of himself. In an ostentatious headline grabbing move he boasted that, in the spirit of ‘austerity’, he would lead all the other government ministers and cut a quarter of the staff, 1,000 jobs, from the Department for Education. At the same time, £174m has been overspent in just one year by Michael Gove’s education department on his academies programme – a shocking example of government incompetence.
Accountable to none
Gove has driven forward the academies programme – originally set in train by the previous Labour government – whereby schools are taken out of the LEA into direct central government control, by simple bribery. Mossbourne Academy in the London borough of Hackney, which was a vanity project under the last Labour government, now receives £738 per pupil whereas the local authority spends £517 per pupil. Gove is conducting a massive restructuring of the curriculum and redistribution of funding and resources without accountability to anyone.
At the same time he is a populist who sets out to make headlines with insults and attacks on his critics, whom he describes as ‘elitist’ and left-wing. Last year’s GCSE examinations showed the continuing trend of rising results. This has posed challenges to the government programme. The increasing expectations of young people, growing academic aspirations at a time of unemployment and good news for teachers and pupils in working class schools are bad news for the ruling class. Gove led the reaction to improving exam grade levels last summer by supporting harsher marking and ‘tougher targets’.
He now plans to do away with GCSEs altogether and replace them with his own invention, the English Baccalaureate Certificate. This Ebacc, as he wants the proposed exam to be known, is limited to five core academic subject areas: English, maths, a science subject, history or geography, and a modern language (Spanish, French or German). Shock and outrage at Gove’s Ebacc plans are coming in thick and fast from many directions. Leading cultural figures, actors and artists deplore the absence of art, music, drama and design as areas of study and say that Gove is abandoning a generation of pupils to a future of cultural impoverishment. Other voices are raised in protest about the absence of business and computer studies, once seen as the fashionable means of inducing the entrepreneurial spirit into school pupils.
All commentators clearly recognise that Gove’s proposals signify an end to the comprehensive school and a return to two-tier selective grammar school education for a minority of pupils and work experience for the rest. Gove’s proposals are designed for a specific purpose, how best to ration education resources and discipline working class students to the realities of public sector cut backs. Excluding layers of young people from higher and further education is the current task of the Education Minister.
In proposing an end to GCSEs and comprehensive schooling for the many, Gove is not merely a bad and reactionary man. He is the faithful agent of the ruling class purposefully attacking the working class and their expectations.
Susan Davidson
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! / 231 February/March 2013
