NUT on Michael Gove’s academies speech

Thursday, 5 January 2012 9:01 AM

Commenting on Education Secretary Michael Gove’s speech on academies, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said:

“The Secretary of State's assertion that the opponents of the Government's forced academy programme are "happy with failure" is an insult to all the hard-working and dedicated teachers, school leaders, support staff and governors in our schools.

“If academy status brought the benefits claimed by the Government why have so few of England's schools opted to convert?

“The forced academy programme is about bullying schools into academy status against the wishes of school communities and their local authorities who are best placed to judge what support any particular school may need, not an external sponsor with an eye to the future profits to be made out of the Government's programme of privatising England's schools.

“The academy programme is wrecking local education authority services to schools, including school improvement services. Each time a school becomes an academy, funding is removed from the LEA, reducing services and support to remaining schools.

“It has nothing to do with school improvement but is part of an ideologically driven agenda to dismantle our current system of local accountability for education.”

END pr02-2012
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