By the end of Labour's present term of office every parent will face in effect a new elevenplus - will their child go to what has been called a 'bog-standard' secondary school, or get a place at one of the new Specialist Schools, better funded, more popular, and with the first pick of teachers in shortage subjects? RICHARD HATCHER reports. THIS NEW two-tier system will divide every town, every Forcing through more faith neighbourhood. Cross-cut- schools and selection - Estelle ting that will be more divi- Morris sions. Faith echanic will expand. The emergence of not just in schools but in FE Muslim denominational colleges and workplaces, schools will be dwarfed by another two-tier system leadthe Church of England's ing to two-tier futures. intention to create 100 more And a further division secondary schools. among schools (and thereAt age 14 more segregation fore among pupils and teachwill take nace Some stil- ers) will he created hetween dents will take the 'aca- the "top" 25% of schools demic' route. Others will fol- which the government low vocational courses based regards as especially 'successful' ...and the rest.
The top stream of schools will be granted what the government likes to call 'earned autonomy, which means they can be trusted with more freedom from government regulation - provided of course thev don't use it to challenge government policy.
The rest of the schools will be subject to even more prescription, notably in the teaching of English through the Literacy Strategy at Key Stage 3 (the first three years of secondary).
Two tier staff The teaching force, too, will be two-tier. The White Paper "Schools Achieving Success' speaks of fewer teachers, not more, with classes being taken by classroom accente More accurately, they will no longer be classroom assistants, they will be a new category of teachers, lower paid, less well qualified, in a two-tier profession.
We will be witnessing the death of the comprebensive school by a thousand forms of selection. Meanwhile, private companies will be circling, seeking the opportunities to make the profits which White Paper promises and the Education Bill legislates for.
These policies repay close examination. They are a case study in how to create a market out of a public service, treading carefully step by step, opening a door here, a door there, to the private sector while trying to minimise any political backlash.
Local Education Authorities continue to be targets. LEAs which are deemed to be failing must contract out their advisory services.
When an LEA wants a new school, or when a school labelled as 'failing' needs to be turned round, it must invite proposals from the private * ACCOR and the Secretary of State can force the LEA to accept them.
A more radical step is the new legislation for schools. Private companies will be able to propose to set up an Academy - an independent specialist school, funded by the government.
Approval can be granted by the Secretary of State regardless of the local LEAand she can compel the LEA to transfer its land to the Academy.
Furthermore, school governing bodies will be able to form companies, invest in companies or become members of companies.
Add to this the plan to allow federations of schools under one governing body and you have the ingredients for creating a chain of privately-run state schools big enough to be profitable, or alternatively for entrepreneurial school manore mentio belinethe process of TUTTING itself INTO money-making multi-site All of these issues have been put on the agenda of this year's NUT Easter conference by the Teachers Alliance and other militants Only action now can retrieve i the principle of school education as a comprehensive and egalitarian public service. tants (and one of the firms of City consultants most involved in PFI contracts) Arthur Andersen - the findings of which have always been contested by unions, academics and campaigners.
When an MP pointed out to Tony Blair that the Andersen report was now "holed below the water line," a desperate Blair could only refer to an even more flawed and partial report by ... PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are involved even more deeply with PFI projects than Andersens (now accenture).
Embarrassment With ministers lacking even a thread of impartial evidence to hide their embarrassment over the cost of PFI, another of its failings has surfaced with the row over the brand new £67m PFI hospital due to open in Bishop Auckland.
There are now doubts over whether the new hospital is big enough or in the right place for the services that will he needed, while the £97m PFIfinanced Dryburn Hospital in nearby North Durham is already too small and failing to meet waiting list targets.
Any proposals to reshape local services are stymied by the fact that far from being an asset, the new hospital is a major liability: the watertight PFi deal to lease the Bishop Auckland Hospital has another 27 years to run!
While he may well cheese off and drive away even more nurses, professionals and support staff, Milburn's campaign is having one unintended beneficial result: it has helped boost recruitment to the public sector unions, and force them into ever more open OpposItIon to New Labour and its privatisa tion agenda.
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