Academies in the spotlight at question time

Question time at Oldham Civic Centre Council (l-r) Cllr Diane Williamson, Cllr Amanda Chadderton, Christine Blower (NUT national general secretary), Alan Gibbons (author), Allan Beswick (chair) and Michael Meacher MP.

ACADEMY schools should be brought back under local authority control in the name of equality and progress say Oldham West and Royton MP Michael Meacher.

The Labour veteran said taking schools out of council control was undemocratic and had “unnecessarily fragmented the education system.”

“The basic motive behind academies is to privatise education, which I am against,” he said. “If academies were shining successes there might be some argument for them, but it is simply not true.”

Similar viewpoints were voiced at last night’s question time meeting at Oldham Civic Centre, organised by the National Union of Teachers and chaired by BBC Radio Manchester presenter Allan Beswick.

The panel included NUT national general secretary Christine Blower. She said: “If you look at the education system that is the most successful in Europe, you look to Finland where all children go to their local school, all go to the same type of school and they aren’t tested until they leave school at 16. They have the highest results.”

Different views were expressed by other members of the panel. Oldham councillor Amanda Chadderton, Cabinet member for education, said: “We need to move away from the argument about whether academies are good or bad because the argument has been lost. They are here to stay, and the question is how we deal with that.

“Some of our academies are performing very well, some aren’t. Some of our community schools perform very well, and some do not.”

Councillor Diane Williamson - Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for education, said: “If you had asked me (about academies) a few years ago I would have said no because I didn’t understanding how they would help our children. But I think they have a different approach to teaching and in Oldham they are performing slightly better than some of our community schools.”