Academisation: Who now holds the key to the secret garden?

This article aims to demonstrate the hazards of an education system controlled by any one group – in this case, governments – by examining the recent drive for the academisation of English state schools. This article highlights the need for education’s independence from political control. The once ‘secret garden’ of the curriculum is now firmly in the government’s grasp. Academies were introduced in England in 2000 by the Labour government; originally called ‘city academies’, they were claimed to break the cycle of underperformance and the low expectations of failing inner-city schools. But they are now promoted as the only means of providing ‘outstanding’ education. The author argues that the current drive for academisation forms part of the market-oriented narrative which believes that market forces offer the best solution to all the needs of society. As well as delivering substantial changes in governance and accountability, academisation conceals a radical shift in education’s purpose, yet it is being pushed through without real debate. The academisation process offers an insight into how governments can, and do, use the state apparatus to ignore, subvert and diminish opposition. To highlight this, the author uses Steven Lukes’ conceptualisation of power: the public, the hidden and the invisible