Opinion
Cartoon by Polly Donnison
Give the electorate a bit of what it wants Warwick Mansell
is a freelance education journalist and founder/writer of educationuncovered. co.uk
WHAT positives might there be in terms of the current state of the political parties in England, for those of us sympathetic to the more progressive side of the argument, who also yearn for the Government to be held to account for its many Covid-related failings of the past 18 months? It might seem hard to find many, when the most recent test of political opinion in the UK – May’s so-called “super Thursday” of local council, mayoral and Scottish and Welsh elections – saw the dominant media narrative as one of failure for Labour and celebrations for the party of government. And yet, it is possible to come to a different reading of the results. This may hint at a sliver of optimism not just across politics, but also in relation to a point of vulnerability for this Government on its
flagship education policy. Where candidates or parties stood on a platform against the centralisation of decision-making power in Whitehall, there were a number of high-profile successes. Labour’s Andy Burnham, for example, was re-elected by a landslide as mayor of Manchester, having taken on the Government vociferously over its centralised – and clearly misfiring – approach to Covid. In Wales, Labour saw its vote share increase by five percentage points after also pursuing its own distinctively non-Whitehall approach to virus mitigation. The Scottish National Party has continued to fare well by presenting itself in opposition to a Boris Johnson-led Government from London. Finally, even the overwhelming win for the Tories’ Ben Houchen as mayor of Tees Valley could be interpreted, at least in part, as an endorsement for someone promising to put the local above national policymaking, Houchen having vowed to “fight the region’s corner”. The relevance of this to education might seem obscure. But anyone looking for an example of hyper-centralised policymaking, with decisions taken in Whitehall regardless
of what people locally think, does not have to venture far from schools’ reform to find it. The academies policy, and particularly forced academisation, sees civil servants taking decisions – for example, which school gets handed to which organisation – with huge implications for pupils, parents and teachers, even though the decision-makers are not answerable to those communities. Perhaps the clearest current example is at Moulsecoomb Primary School in Brighton, where, at the time of writing, ministers still seemed intent on academising this local authority school. This is despite it being on a clear improvement path without academisation, being on its fourth suggested academy “sponsor” and having a huge community campaign against academisation behind it. This is remote, aloof policymaking, in complete opposition to what local people seem to want. The notion of forced academies, in particular, is an open goal for any political party wanting to take up the cause of more locally sensitive approaches to education. Devolution of power seems to be a vote winner. Perhaps political parties should try advocating it seriously for our schools. They might find the electorate quite like it.
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