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They are non-profit trusts established to provide high quality education without needing to be beholden to a Local Education Authority.

by johnzim 11y ago

akhatri_aus 11y ago
I'm not sure that's so bad. I thought 'private' made it for profit, but there are lots of Universities that are run under this type of structure. Is anything wrong with it? I don't get it, they still get government funding & don't need to get sponsors even though they can? The issue is that the assets are transferred to these trusts and they don't follow the local education authority..
- _delirium 11y ago
  It removes them from local government control, which can have good or bad effects. In terms of oversight, the authority is moved from the local government (ultimately chosen by the local voting public), to the nonprofit's board of trustees (ultimately chosen by... well, usually themselves). The hoped-for good outcome is that they'll be run by competent technocrats who will do a good job while being insulated from politics. The worried-about bad outcome is that entities with no democratic oversight can end up captured by their administrators, and drift increasingly away from the needs/wants of the local population. In practice, the national government retains some kind of oversight of UK academies, in part because it controls most of their budget. So they can't completely go off into doing whatever they want. But local government no longer does. So another way of looking at it is that the move represents a centralization of educational oversight, removing oversight power from local government authorities and investing it in the national Department for Education instead. In my personal opinion that's the wrong direction; I'd rather have schools be more locally run.
- nemof 11y ago
  this effectively privatises our schools and means that the local education authority has no oversight - as far as i am concerned that's bloody insane. being "beholden" to local authorities means we can see how finances are being spent and have public accountability. you will not get that when there's no obligation of the provider to do so. if it were some product falling through that cracks, who the hell would care, but that's some kids future.
  - akhatri_aus 11y ago
    I had a look at this a bit more thoroughly over the past day. It's certainly not as bad as it's made out to be. I spoke to a couple of brit teachers and they say it lets them use their own teaching ideas & get more teachers (apparently no one wants to be a teacher). So i'm guessing it can improve schools dramatically as well as make them worse. It can improve them, though.

They are non-profit trusts established to provide high quality education without needing to be beholden to a Local Education Authority.

by johnzim 11y ago

They are non-profit trusts established to provide high quality education without needing to be beholden to a Local Education Authority.

akhatri_aus 11y ago

I'm not sure that's so bad. I thought 'private' made it for profit, but there are lots of Universities that are run under this type of structure. Is anything wrong with it? I don't get it, they still get government funding & don't need to get sponsors even though they can? The issue is that the assets are transferred to these trusts and they don't follow the local education authority..

_delirium 11y ago
It removes them from local government control, which can have good or bad effects. In terms of oversight, the authority is moved from the local government (ultimately chosen by the local voting public), to the nonprofit's board of trustees (ultimately chosen by... well, usually themselves). The hoped-for good outcome is that they'll be run by competent technocrats who will do a good job while being insulated from politics. The worried-about bad outcome is that entities with no democratic oversight can end up captured by their administrators, and drift increasingly away from the needs/wants of the local population. In practice, the national government retains some kind of oversight of UK academies, in part because it controls most of their budget. So they can't completely go off into doing whatever they want. But local government no longer does. So another way of looking at it is that the move represents a centralization of educational oversight, removing oversight power from local government authorities and investing it in the national Department for Education instead. In my personal opinion that's the wrong direction; I'd rather have schools be more locally run.
nemof 11y ago
this effectively privatises our schools and means that the local education authority has no oversight - as far as i am concerned that's bloody insane. being "beholden" to local authorities means we can see how finances are being spent and have public accountability. you will not get that when there's no obligation of the provider to do so. if it were some product falling through that cracks, who the hell would care, but that's some kids future.
- akhatri_aus 11y ago
  I had a look at this a bit more thoroughly over the past day. It's certainly not as bad as it's made out to be. I spoke to a couple of brit teachers and they say it lets them use their own teaching ideas & get more teachers (apparently no one wants to be a teacher). So i'm guessing it can improve schools dramatically as well as make them worse. It can improve them, though.