Ten years ago Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications, signalled that the attack on state education would be nasty when he commented, ‘the day of the bog-standard comprehensive school is over’. Hundreds of instructions, targets and tests flooded from six Labour Education Secretaries over 13 years to impose iron discipline on schools and colleges. Blair fulfilled his election platform of ‘education, education, education’ by expanding layers of consultants, inspectors and ‘specialists’ into the system. The education budget increased from £29 billion in 1997 to £60 billion in 2010 making the system not just ‘underfunded’ but ‘mis-funded’. Today, 25.2% of Key Stage 1 pupils, aged from 5 to 7 years, are still taught in classes of over 30, 20% of pupils leave school at 16 with few or no examination passes and school truancy which stood at 0.7% in 1997 was 6.27% in 2010.
The great give-away
Meanwhile, central government has broken off marketable chunks of education. School cleaning, meals, payroll services – the whole infrastructure of educational institutions – was outsourced in a transfer of public money that guaranteed both capital and a steady market to private companies. Labour gave away entire schools, complete with public land and buildings, initially for a small contribution but later entirely free, to Academy sponsors. These may be the Church of England, banks, the army, mosques, or any other group that wants to advertise its influence.
It’s capitalism, stupid!
Devout Christian and millionaire businessman Sir Peter Vardy was sponsor of Emmanuel City Technology College (CTC) in Gateshead. In 2002 the school was criticised for allegedly teaching creationism, but the issue was defused by Tony Blair, who opened a second Vardy Foundation Academy in Middlesbrough and rewarded Sir Peter with a knighthood. By 2010 Sir Peter had given away Emmanuel college and its three sister schools to another federation, the United Learning Trust (ULT), which runs 21 state-funded schools. John Burn, retired Principal of Emmanuel CTC, complains that ‘everything was done behind closed doors without the knowledge of the school principals, the governors, the parents or the local communities which these schools serve’ and concludes that ‘schools which join federations seeking the freedoms promised them as Academies may opt out of their local authority only to find themselves ultimately within a structure that is more restrictive, less accountable and from which there is no escape’.
Inevitably the ‘free’ autonomous schools, paid for by the state, will not exist as independent units for more than a few years before being swallowed up by large private Academy sponsors. This move towards centralisation and corporate management is characteristic of the education market. Economies of scale require continual expansion in order to sustain profit margins. The private services company Capita now controls the Management Information Systems of 80% of schools, charging up to £25,000 to relicense back office computer systems. School payments to Capita are expected to reach £500 million in the next three years. This is how capitalism works.
Education not for sale
However, the education of the whole working class can never be turned into an investor’s market entirely. The edges of state education that are being nibbled away by the private sector are relatively small. There are 3,127 maintained or LEA school in the UK while the most predatory education business E-Act runs 11 schools at present, but aims to operate 250 Academies within five years provided that central government continues to provide finance. It is in private schools, which charge in excess of £24,000 a year, where the state only intervenes to give charitable status and tax relief, that education is truly for sale.
A very English institution
People are sometimes bewildered why England’s most expensive and elite private schools, attended by just 7% of the school population, are called ‘public schools’. The answer is in the history of the rise of the merchant class who wanted schooling for their sons. While the aristocracy kept resident tutors, cheaper establishments were founded where the students would go to the tutor. Over time schools such as Eton (1440) Rugby (1567) and Westminster (1560) attracted enormous endowments and became, as they remain today, the training ground for the next generation of the ruling class. The earliest English universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Oxbridge) were the next destination for many of these young men – and so it remains today. Oxbridge and the public schools continue to dominate the institutions of British society with 35% of current MPs, 82% of current cabinet ministers and 67% of judges having attended Eton and/or Oxbridge. Just 3% of English schools account for almost one third of undergraduate admissions to Oxbridge. Now, as always, the ruling class holds on tight to its privileges and power.
Susan Davidson
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 222 August/September 2011
