News
All schools to be invited to become academies
26 May 2010
Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has written to every school in the country inviting them to become academies. Academies are state-funded schools which are independent of local authority control.
Schools that currently have an outstanding report from Ofsted will be eligible to fast-tracked to academy status in time for the autumn. About one in five secondary schools are currently rated as outstanding.
It will also mean that state-funded academies could be set up by parents or other groups without needing to consult the local authority, under the "free school" policy.
Speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Mr Gove said, "What I'd like to do is to ensure some of the radicalism that we used to have in education policy returns. "It's about saying to heads, and boards of governors and teachers - it's up to you. I don't want to coerce anyone into a position with which they're unhappy. I want to allow schools to take up this offer."
However Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, argued that it was wrong to stop local authorities from having a say in proposals for new schools.
She said that such "academies and free schools are a recipe for educational inequality and social segregation. Given the imperative to tackle the budget deficit, the Academies Bill represents a costly and unnecessary solution to a problem that simply does not exist".
Read the full story on the BBC
