Sometimes the most chilling news is tucked away on back pages. Warwick Mansell’s always illuminating diary (14 June) reveals that the “powerful but shady” regional school commissioners see it as their “responsibility to ensure that the government’s goal is achieved”. And the goal? “England’s system to be all-academy in six years”. So much for the U-turn. Turn back a page and read Aditya Chakrabortty’s article (Less free market, more freeloaders) on a “deformed capitalism, barely worthy of the name”. Then look back at last Sunday’s Observer (12 June) and the equally chilling special investigation on the not-for-profit Bright Tribe multi-academy trust, which has apparently made the venture capitalist Mike Dwan a multimillionaire. The activities of the “charlatans in pinstripes” milking public funds aren’t restricted to the retail sector. Unison’s national officer responsible for local government is quoted as saying of a response from the National Audit Office, whose job it is to regulate potential profit-making in the academy system: “I have read a lot of correspondence from regulators over the years. And this one screams: ‘We really don’t like what we see’.” Permission to scream with them! We must support your 96 correspondents who wrote opposing the drive to multi-academy trusts (Letters, 10 June). This is as major a privatisation scandal as that facing the NHS.
John Airs
Liverpool
• Puzzled why David Carter (schools commissioner) and Michael Wilshaw (Ofsted) have taken so long to “come clean” about the “failing” academy scandal (Report, 16 June). These two powerful positions and the organisations they represent are supposed to be independent of political control or bias. Yet we have Ofsted supporting the government’s “pro-academy” policy by pushing arbitrarily designated “failing” schools in to academy status – while also incidentally awarding a plethora of academies and alliances “outstanding” status. And Carter has told the Commons select committee that 119 academies have been brokered as “a last resort”. What is going on? We now know that a teacher can be fast-tracked into a school in 12 weeks, which makes a mockery of “professional pedagogical training”, and apparently the schools themselves have become the objects of “empire-building”. What have these two political appointees been doing to allow this disgraceful state of affairs to further erode an already crumbling education system?
Professor Bill Boyle
Tarporley, Cheshire
• There is much to agree with in Richard Adams’ article (GCSEs have bent schools out of shape. So scrap them, 11 June), especially the view that there should be assessments at age 14, ie at the end of year 9. Students at this age will have a firm idea of whether their future lies along the academic pathway or the vocational, and could specialise accordingly between ages 14 and 18. There might also be specialist educational establishments to cater for each of these pathways, similar to the far-sighted Education Act of 1944, the difference being that the specialisation takes place at age 14 rather than 11. This is very similar to what is done in France and Germany, where such a system works well, and the vocational route is completely and fully respected, enjoying parity of esteem with the academic track. Why does our country always show the way and then leave it to others to profit from it? It is unrealistic to expect any single establishment to be able to provide all things to all students and to all levels.
Dr David Moulson
Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire
• Martin Kettle is too kind to Michael Gove in calling him a hitherto “moderniser, fascinated by openness, logic and ideas” (Opinion, 10 June). As secretary of state for education, Gove was an unthinking disciple of the philosopher ED Hirsch, with his ill-conceived epistemology and limited view of education. As a result, we have a narrow curriculum, an obsession with testing, demoralised teachers and stressed children. Had Gove been at all open or interested in other people’s ideas he would not have imposed his ideology onto the education professions and generations of children.
James Pitt
York
• Periodically the national press excitedly rediscovers the benefits of Steiner Waldorf education (Singing, playing – and strictly no screen time: the Steiner schools, 14 June), and commonly seems perplexed at the success of this allegedly “controversial” learning approach. As a trained Waldorf teacher and keen student of Steiner myself, I can attest to there being far more instances of Rudolf Steiner being proved right than there are examples of his ideas being disproved; and a deep understanding of the proper place of technology in children’s learning is just one of these. The Steiner approach is so successful because it is built upon perennial wisdom, is not afraid to embrace a spiritual cosmology, and challenges head-on the unwarranted assumption that technological progress is always and necessarily a beneficent good. Architect Max Frisch’s definition of technology speaks a thousand words – viz: “Technology… the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.” For as long as we have parents with the insight to question the worst aspects of a crass, technology-obsessed modernity, there will be a demand for these excellent schools, and the gimmick-free, perennially wise approach to learning that they patiently offer.
Dr Richard House
Stroud, Gloucestershire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
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