Toby Young Toby Young

Why I’m uneasy about academies for all

This is the use of socialist means to achieve Conservative ends in schools

issue 02 April 2016

As someone who believes in limited government, I feel conflicted about universal academisation. I’m a fan of the academies policy because it reduces the involvement of politicians and bureaucrats in taxpayer-funded education, but there’s something a little Stalinist about the state forcing all local-authority schools to become academies. It’s using socialist methods to bring about a conservative goal.

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