02 December 2005
The government is set for defeat on its cornerstone education reform Bill unless it makes concessions to appease rebellious Labour MPs, senior education professionals have told Public Finance.
Critics of the controversial education white paper, published in October, fear that giving schools more control over their own admissions and promoting a bigger role for alternative providers, faith groups and parents will result in a more divisive education system.
Discontented backbenchers, buoyed by their recent defeat of the government's anti-terrorism measures, are now prepared to use their collective weight to secure significant concessions on education.
This has prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair and Education Secretary Ruth Kelly to begin a charm offensive to persuade potential rebels that the reforms deserve support. Each has recently delivered a keynote speech emphasising that the white paper is an attempt to ensure the privileges enjoyed by the better-off are extended to all families.
Yet 29 Labour backbenchers have already signed an early day motion sponsored by Ian Gibson MP, which states that the white paper will result in the destruction of the social class mix and create an unfair education balance.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, told PF that the unpopularity of the white paper among the Labour rank and file was a problem of the government's own making.
'The government is likely to be persuaded that its measures will not have adequate backbench support and the blame for that lies with the government itself, which has confused everybody with the messages it has put out about the white paper,' he said.
'The spin focused on the additional freedoms, and the new category of trust school being much freer from local authority control. All of those things are not in the white paper,' he said.
According to Dunford, the new freedoms for head teachers promised by the white paper are largely illusory and could even take powers away from heads. Trust schools appointing the majority of their governors will be obliged to set up a Parents' Council to run the school.
Dunford added that a new Education Act was completely unnecessary. 'Head teachers have all the powers they need,' he said.
Another senior education source told PF that the weight of opinion was against the 'ill-conceived and out-of-step' white paper and that it would have to be substantially altered to have any chance of getting through Parliament.
He said: 'I think Tony Blair has made another significant error of judgement. I don't think it's going to run with the backbenchers. It would appear that admissions is one of the major sticking points, as well as these trust schools, which MPs do not trust.'
Former education secretary Estelle Morris added her voice to the growing number of dissenters last week over the schools' admission policy. 'If all schools have the freedom to decide their admissions, then no one has the power to safeguard the wider public good,' she said.
This week businesses also expressed their doubts about trust schools, citing the negative publicity some academy sponsors had received.
'Some companies have already burned their fingers on the academy programme, and there is a wariness about getting involved with trust schools,' said Mike Brophy, director of education at Business in the Community, a charity that includes some major firms among its members.
But Kelly insisted: 'There are a huge number of companies that want to work with us to improve our schools, and there are already more potential sponsors of academies than we have academies.'
PFdec2005
