Teachers invite supporters to join them for a protest in Chester city centre this teatime (Wednesday, March 23) against the ‘privatisation of the English education system’.
Chancellor George Osborne used his Budget speech to say all schools in England will become academies by 2020 or have official plans to do so by 2022.
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Academies are independent, state-funded schools, which receive their funding directly from central government, rather than through a local authority. Existing academies include Christleton High School, Mill View Primary School in Upton and Boughton Heath Academy.
Some local teachers are opposed to the change arguing it is opening education up to the influence of big business, that it will take away the input of parents and elected local councillors and that ‘profits’ will be siphoned off through inflated management salaries and consultancy fees.
They are holding a rally at The Cross, in Chester, at 5pm today in tandem with simultaneous protests around the UK and a march on Westminster when members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) will stage a demonstration outside the Department for Education.
Teacher Greg Foster, secretary of the local branches of the NUT and ATL, said: “We are protesting the privatisation of the English education system because it’s taking schools out of public control.”
He added: “There is no evidence becoming an academy improves educational outcomes for children. If academies are so good why are there none in Wales? Why are there no academies in Scotland? Why are there no academies in Northern Ireland? The academies programme is not about standards, not about freedoms, not about children – it’s about who owns schools.”
Mr Foster, who claimed the chairman of one existing Cheshire academy receives £10,000 a year for attending six meetings, added: “The NUT is utterly opposed to the government’s plan to convert all schools to academies.
"The details outlined in the Education White Paper will signal the end of democratic accountability in England’s education system. Two petitions to government calling for the scrapping of the forced academies policy reached their target of 100,000 signatures in less than a week.”
Teachers will be leafleting by The Cross from 4.30pm until 5pm when a rally will be held with a number of speakers.
