This Tory twaddle is a danger to our children

Last Updated: April 6, 2016By
Welsh Tory leader: Andrew RT Davies is the grinning goon behind the plan to privatise Welsh schools.

Welsh Tory leader: Andrew RT Davies is the grinning goon behind the plan to privatise Welsh schools.

Why is the Conservative Party trying to foist sub-standard education on our children?

Despite the furore over the forced-academisation of English schools, a local candidate in the Welsh Assembly elections still thinks it’s a good idea.

His name is Gary Price and his election leaflet claims there is a “lifeline” for the local high school after Powys County Council announced plans to close it.

Then he admits that his plan is to turn it into an academy – or a Free School, which is even worse! He’s vague about which it would be, leaving the door open for unqualified people teaching your children or, God forbid, nightmares like the ‘Muslim schools’ fiasco in Birmingham.

Anyone who follows the news will be aware that Conservative councillors in England have teamed up with their rivals from Labour and the Liberal Democrats to oppose Education secretary ‘Thicky’ Nicky Morgan’s plan to turn all publicly-run schools into academies. They know it will kill their chances at the May elections.

The plan means £60 billion worth of public assets would be handed over to private organisations – at a cost of £1.3 billion to the public purse. Implemented in Wales, it would cost around £66,000 per school to the Assembly, if England is any yardstick – and what would we get in return?

A worsening of teaching standards – that’s what.

Information from the Department for Education last July showed that primary and secondary schools are around FIVE TIMES more likely to be “inadequate” if they are academies than if local education authorities continue to run them.

Sponsored academies lead to slower school improvement - see the facts here: http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/07/dfe-data-sponsored-academies-lead-to-slower-school-improvement

Sponsored academies lead to slower school improvement – see the facts here: http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/07/dfe-data-sponsored-academies-lead-to-slower-school-improvement

Anything that isn’t profitable for the private enterprises running academies is shut down, so we can expect to lose our sixth forms, as many English areas already have – just ask the people of Knowsley, Merseyside, where all schools are academies and none have a sixth form.

And these schools will not be accountable to anyone but the Conservative Government in Westminster, because parents will be forcibly removed from their governing bodies.

Gary (I’ve known him for years, so we are on first-name terms) claims the local high school is in danger because of funding cuts, and this is true. What a shame he lies about the origin of those cuts, which have been imposed on Powys County Council and the Welsh Labour Government by the Conservative Government in Westminster.

So the Tories have created the problem in order to turn our schools into profit factories for private enterprise, while our children’s education suffers.

Gary – and his party – is a threat to education and a danger to our children.

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3 Comments

  1. peskirabbit April 6, 2016 at 1:55 pm - Reply

    I think its fairly straightforward why the Tories don’t want an educated populace. In the seventies and eighties there was a great surge of mainly lower middle class people who had education, and thanks to the benefits system of the day also had time. There was on the other hand not a lot of jobs that met their expectations, and many had very little investment in the system/status quo.This equals thought, activism, taking life choices like going on the road.So you had a situation where those who did want to buy into the system were successfully challenging the middle classes for jobs which they thought belonged to them and their children, and those who didn’t had a lethal (for the powers that be) combination of time and an adequate subsistence.

    In 1984 a senior Department of Education Officer warned in a report that
    “Legislative powers might be necessary to change and rationalise the schools curricula. We are in a period of considerable social change. There may be social unrest, but we can cope with the Toxteths, the Brixtons, the Handsworth, and the Miners. But if we have A Highly Educated and Idle Population, we may possibly anticipate more serious social conflict.”
    ‘People must be educated to once more know their place’

    I googled the quote from fragments of it that I remembered from reading it years ago, and refer you to the page where I found the quote
    https://norfolknonaligned.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/the-assault-on-education/

    • chriskitcher April 6, 2016 at 2:37 pm - Reply

      This is all part of the Tories plan for our workforce to be poorly or uneducated in order that they will be in a better position to challenge for poorly paid employment when the country has to compete with third world economies after a Brexit.

  2. David April 7, 2016 at 7:52 am - Reply

    There seems to be a colossal, worldwide conspiracy by the super rich to down the working classes, to make sure that their rights are eroded and to reduce them to illiteracy. Am I paranoid? The evidence suggests not.

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