In February, at Salford UNISON's public question time on academies, Salford and Eccles MP, Rebecca Long Bailey, called on parents to "create as much uproar as possible" over the Tory Government's plans to convert all schools into academies...
"What they've put on the table is disgraceful and it is creating a Wild West" she explained, slating the "commercialisation and privatisation" of academies, "run in the interests of profit - and that is not what education is about."
Yesterday, the Salford MP, now also Shadow Treasury Minister, took the fight to Parliament during a debate on academies...
"Salford schools are under immense strain, there are chronic shortages of teachers, class sizes are rising and the extra-curricular services such as mentoring, which can often mean the difference between a child succeeding and failing, are being scaled back" she said
"With all the Chancellor's rhetoric on the Northern Powerhouse, now is the time to raise standards and skill our region for the future, not take money and effort away from education by undertaking an extremely costly and, quite frankly, unnecessary programme to convert all schools into academies" she added "I hope the Minister understands that, in Salford, good education isn't a luxury, it is integral to our economic viability as a city but I fear that the proposals as drafted will put our economic future in jeopardy."
Long Bailey added that "Academies have not been shown to be more effective than maintained schools" and that "Schools should be rooted in and accountable to their local communities but the Government's proposals create quite the opposite, taking schools away from local authority control and removing parent governors."
Meanwhile, the Government is also planning to nick all the council-owned land that sites current council-run schools... "the treatment of land assets is described by many as a land grab reminiscent of the dissolution of the monasteries" she said "Plans will see all school land transferred directly to the Secretary of State who will then grant a lease to the academy trust, thus centralising control."
*See also previous Salford Star article: Salford and Eccles MP Tells Parents To Create Uproar Over School Academies – click here
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
(3).jpeg)
.png)
(1).JPG)
