It’s not often that education takes centre stage in British politics, but when it does, you can bet that it’ll capture public opinion.
The government had probably not expected that its proposal to force all schools to convert to academies in the Educational Excellence Everywhere white paper would prove to be such a political hot potato.
Indeed, since the coalition government came to power in 2010 there have been a series of policy drivers to encourage schools to become academies, attracting relatively little attention from national media or those outside of the sector. The Conservative party told us in its manifesto for the 2015 general election that it “will continue to expand academies,” and since then there have been a number of policy drivers to help this to happen.
It’s clear that the government believes academy status will result in school improvement. The problem is that there is not sufficient evidence to support this, and the evidence put forward has been questionable. For example, the Prime Minister said that 88% of converter academies were rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted. Whilst this sounds impressive, it actually reflects a decline in quality, as schools needed to be good or outstanding to convert in the first place.
The decision to force all schools to become academies by 2022 proved to be deeply unpopular. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan was heckled and jeered by teachers at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) conference, several popular petitions were started and there was a threat of rebellion from backbench Tory MPs.
This resulted in a government ‘u-turn’, as it dropped the requirement for all schools to become academies. This appears to have been well received, with many considering it a victory, and the row has largely died down.
However, the truth is that most schools will still become academies by 2022.
This is because the new plans include a provision to convert schools into an academy if they are under-performing and they don’t have the finances to sustain a school improvement programme. There will also still be many schools who voluntarily convert.
The fact that the government can likely achieve its aim of all schools becoming academies without forcing the issue leaves one wondering why the proposal was made in the first place. The climb-down has been cleverly orchestrated, but cannot undo the damage done to the reputation of Nicky Morgan in particular, who had to announce the u-turn after claiming that there was “no reverse gear.”
Perhaps this is why rumours of a cabinet reshuffle are emerging, with Morgan tipped to be replaced as Minister for Education; former London Mayor Boris Johnson has even been tipped for the role. Whatever happens, however, it looks like academisation is still very much part of government policy.
