From Dr Robin C. Richmond
Sir, - Academies are certainly not an improvement ("Be more radical, Gove
tells Bishops", News, 5 July).
Academies are state schools funded by the taxpayer, with no
democratic control or accountability. Academies are free of the
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. Who knows what goes
on inside them? Ten per cent of teachers are now unqualified, and
who are these people? How do Academies and their secretive sponsors
spend the large sums of public money they are given?
Already one or two stories have emerged of the misappropriation
and misuse of public funds. Between six per cent and ten per cent
of their budgets is paid over by many of these schools to
non-statutory and unaccountable "chains". Where do parents complain
or seek redress if they have a grievance? It is not OFSTED that is
now the politicised enforcer for Michael Gove, the Secretary of
State.
The Education Act 1944 established not only the "dual system"
integrating church schools into a state system, but, crucially, a
balance of power in responsibility for state education between
local and central government. Local education authorities (LEAs)
were responsible for proposing the opening and closing of, or any
changes to, schools in their local area. It was the Secretary of
State's responsibility to accept or reject these proposals. Head
teachers and governors were responsible for the curriculum and how
it was taught.
Mr Gove's Academies Act 2010 has swept away that balance of
power and put the total control of publicly funded state education
in England into the hands of the Secretary of State. The education
of the next generation of children is now dictated by the whim of
one politician, a situation that carries extreme dangers.
Already Mr Gove is dictating the content of the curriculum and
how it is taught - in particular, his version of history and of
mathematics. That the status of religious education is dependent on
one autocratic politician should be warning enough.
The Bishops, alongside the Bishop of Oxford ought to have been
expressing the real concerns that exist about what is happening to
many church schools as an essential part of the state education
system.
No one voted for these foolish changes to state education. No
proposals were in the coalition agreement, and no one was
consulted. Tyrants always think that they know best, and English
public education will be left in a terrible mess as the result of
Mr Gove's arrogance.
ROBIN C. RICHMOND
Providence Cottage, Burying Lane
The Downs, Bromyard
Herefordshire HT7 4NY