Will there be money for free schools?

charles hercock

Brouhaha is what we will expect on this issue at the Lib Dem conference.Watch for a veto

Dale Bassett

"quality not quantity will determine the lasting success of this reform"

Pete - although I agree with you on many things I don't think you're right about this!

The whole point of this reform is to liberalise the supply side. The idea is that choice will drive up standards - but this can only happen once there really is genuine choice, which means lots of schools (offering different things), with surplus places, in every part of the country. Until that happens the competition mechanism won't kick in and, while the children who actually go to these schools will likely benefit, there will be no wider systemic effect - which is, after all, meant to the the whole point of the reform!

So in this case it really is a case of quantity not quality - which is why we at Reform continue to argue strongly that for-profit providers have to be allowed in in order to stump up capital costs.

TrevorsDen

The IFS point out 'under the previous Labour Government's budget plans, net capital investment was due to be halved in real terms across the public sector between 2010-11 and 2014-15'. --- Did anyone tell Ed Balls?

The IFS also point out that 15% of the BSF budget would have been used - now of course it has been scrapped completely. Will this liberate more money?

It is I venture the quality of teaching that is important, not the bricks and mortar.

Dave B

What are the capital costs? If it's school buildings, surely they can get round that by not having HMG buy/build/lease them.

If schools can rent appropriate space themselves, the problem goes away.

New Model Schools have managed without purpose built buildings.

http://www.newmodelschool.co.uk/node/1617

Victor Southern

Did Gove say the 3000 free schools by 2019 would all be built at an even rate? Of course he didn't. The increasing trend shows that by the time 9 years has passed the target could be considerably exceeded. After all it doubles between 2012 and 2013.

Moreover you have no reason to think that new plans might not come along to increase the number of schools being created in the next 3 years. After all the plan was only announced two months ago.

Now I do know that too many civil servants seem to be mathematically inept these days but if we need 3000 free schools to accommodate 220,000 pupils those schools will average 73 pupils each - rather small. In fact not a whole lot of new building will be required at all if those are the targets - there are plenty of empty buildings around that could house 73 pupils.

One might even think that on the FT there would be some people who could do some simple sums.

Private Schultz

Well said Victor!

Ian Walker

Victor, the pink paper has sadly become the pinko paper, and there never was a socialist able to grasp mathematics, since the whole philosophy is logically unsound. Everyone who cares reads the WSJ nowadays.

As for the article, is the low uptake a consequence of the non-profit requirement, perhaps?

Simon Stephenson

TrevorsDen : 3.39pm

"It is I venture the quality of teaching that is important, not the bricks and mortar."

Too many people who after finishing formal schooling are destined for life to be herd-followers, because their education and upbringing haven't expanded their powers of thought sufficiently for them to have the confidence to assert autonomy in choice, decision-making and opinion forming.

This is the underlying problem of our nation today, that without rectification will be the millstone that stops progress from being made everywhere else.

Improving this situation should be the overriding focus of those charged with running our education system.

Rabyrover

David Cameron & his fellow toffs can always buy places at selective schools for their children if they are unhappy with their local secondary. Free schools, academies --call them what you like-- are going to be bog standard comprehensives under a new name. I have yet to meet anyone who is interested in them. Interest in more grammar schools has far greater appeal.

Neil Wilson

There is always money to build these things if required. We are a sovereign nation.

The only issue is whether there is building capacity sat idle in the economy that can construct them.

Unfortunately this government has peddled the myth that we are 'broke' and would find it difficult to explain the reality (assuming they believe it themselves).

Victor Southern

Ian Walker

I cannot answer you properly. Obviously more schools would be created if the profit motive were there. That does not necessarily mean that the resultant schools would all be of good quality. A proportion would be run by chancers who would duck if the money didn't flow fast enough.

I am ambivalent about the Gove proposals in fact possibly slightly uneasy about them. That may stem from insufficient data.

I wrote on this thread only to expose the barrenness of the journalism - it is valueless. Perhaps these new schools might teach simple arithmetic as used to happen. Some understanding of number before surrendering to the computer might be all-round beneficial.

Barry Bilge

If an existing school becomes 'free' does that count as a 'new' school?

Scary Biscuits

Rabyrover, your prejudice blinds you. Anybody who speaks to Gove knows that, like IDS, he really believes in his reforms. By far the easiest thing for any minister to do is just to sign papers as recommended by his officials and to go with the flow.

Gove and IDS are heros for not taking this approach. They are the first ministers since Geoffrey Howe in 1979 to actually know something about their subjects and take issue with the Whitehall group think. (Howe refused to accept the Treasury assumption of automatic inflation increases in budgets each year, insisting that, as with any company in crisis, you should not allow your suppliers to raise prices every year. If only Osborne had similar backbone, instead of accepting Labour's ever upwards escalator to communisim.)

Ian Walker

Victor, if I ruled the world, or at least the Department for Education, I would scrap the current subject-based primary curriculum, which is far too heavily geared towards fact retention.

Instead, I would have a skills-based programme, based on Literacy (reading, writing), Numeracy, Critical Thinking (logic, avoidance of fallacies, how to construct and follow a proper argument) and Artistic Appreciation (Ronseal).

Those would be a framework to weave more traditional "subjects" around, such as science, languages, art, PE, music etc. Primary schools now often have topic-based lessons, so for a week or two they will explore many aspects of a particular sphere. Unfortunately, they then have to shoehorn the outmoded National Curriculum into it.

Simon Stephenson

Ian Walker : 10.32am

I agree completely, but what you are suggesting is not just a reshuffling of educational priorities, it's a denial of the central tenet of educational policy for the last 50 years - that intellectual autonomy cannot lead to a cohesive society in the way that a programme of subordination of the individual to the group can.

What has to be discussed is the possibility that the social failings of today may be the result of too much authoritarianism and too little anarchy, rather than the majority view that it is the other way round.

Ian Stewart

Still not at all convinced that this is a good idea in the first place. The evidence is patchy at best. What on earth is wrong with having a uniform , rational state schooling system,that allows for both technical and academic excellence? Why do we have to always see any provision as being bettered by a market? talent has never been restricted by class o geographical location, so why, with these reforms, are we further splintering our people apartEducation has been an ideological football for far too long.

janee

Funny that the Financial Times has got this information. So far the Department for Education has refused to give me details of "free" school applications, despite my Freedom of Information request. I thought civil servants were supposed to carry out their jobs in an apolitical manner.