Education

Education is currently in the hands of bureaucrats, producers and unions.  Giving real power to parents and students will deliver tangible benefits, especially for the less well off.

Britain’s state education system currently offers almost no choice, and this lack of choice leads to poor standards.  Education has become a political football with debates over exam standards, entry requirements for further education, and now the free schools policy all causing confusion and unease amongst parents and pupils.

We support the Gove reforms to education which have seen a huge increase in the numbers of acadamies or ‘free schools’ set up by parents or private enterprises to offer the sort of choice that parents value, and that is vital for a thriving education system.  Allowing the tax money to pay for the education to follow the student , regardless if this is to a private or state school, and allowing profit making schools would further improve the policy.   

With resource allocation being determined by parents, there would no longer be any need for the large education bureaucracy, either at Whitehall or in local councils.  The freed resources from shrinking this bureaucracy can then be reinvested back into the school system.  Freed from this bureaucracy, innovation will thrive, with new schools opening to meet the individual needs of students. 

Progressive Vision believes, contrary to the Swedish system on which free schools are based, that parents should be able to top up the fees (about £6,000 for secondary schools) provided from the government, should they wish to send their child to a private school that charges more than the government allowance.  It is claimed that this would be unfair as rich people who already send their children to a private school will receive a windfall.  This is a misguided concern, but there is a practical implication to this: If the eight per cent of pupils who currently attend private schools were to be paid this allowance, either the exchequer would have to find a considerable additional amount of money or the money to all other pupils would drop proportionally.  As neither option is desirable, the allowance should be tapered according to the level of top-up.  For example, you might allow a top-up of £3,000 to bring the fee to £9,000, with no taper. But you might then start dropping the £6,000K in such a way that a school with fees of £20,000 would receive no state support.  A school with fees of £15,000 might receive £500 in state support.

Under such a system, failing schools would close.   However, the Swedish system demonstrates that the more likely result for failing schools is that the falling roles forces the management to make drastic changes to the failing school so that the parent want their children to remain.  Under the current system, failing schools continue to fail and parents, especially poor parents, have no options but to continue sending their children to them – drastically reducing their prospects for the future.