A Liberal Approach to Education in the 21st Century: Recapturing the Concept of a Public Good

Despite being an ardent proponent of the free market, largely because of my classical liberal principles, there are some things that I believe should still be treated as a public good: one of these is education. In recent years, especially under Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove, reforms have leaned towards privatisation and marketisation, in the form of Academies and Free-Schools.

Gove envisioned that these would have far reaching effects beyond the UK and that England’s school leavers would become world-leaders in qualifications, marching up the international comparison tables. He argued that education under New Labour had deteriorated because of dumbing down caused by the National Curriculum, grade inflation, and a widening attainment gap between wealthy and poor students. I have criticisms of some aspects of Gove’s reforms and will propose alternatives that I believe would reverse the trend of education becoming a private commodity rather than a public good.

An analysis of the reforms implemented by Gove

As Secretary of State for Education from 2010 to 2014, Michael Gove spearheaded one of the most radical and controversial recent overhauls of the English state education system. His policies were driven by a desire to shake up school management, raise academic standards through rigorous testing, and introduce a “knowledge-based” curriculum. However, despite his intentions being noble, the reality of the reforms was far more destructive, than might have been expected, in three ways.

1. Increased Inequality: researchers and education specialists argued that free schools and academies, tended to disproportionately serve wealthy, middle-class areas that already had surplus places, thereby increasing social segregation and drawing vital funding away from areas that needed urgent secondary school expansions.
2. Fragmented accountability: the aggressive expansion of academies and free schools reduced the oversight of local authorities, resulting in a fragmented system. A report recently published by the Institute for Government, highlighted the fact that this left massive accountability gaps, making it difficult to properly monitor academies and free schools for poor performance, without seeming to make it appear that they were outperforming ordinary schools. A neutral interpretation of results was far less impressive.
3. Lack of evidence of better results: educational studies, including research by the Education Policy Institute show minor difference in student attainment between academies and free schools compared with local authority-maintained schools. Some studies have even shown that the attainment gap is substantially better under local authority-maintained schools, because they are more able to cater to their community’s unique socioeconomic and cultural context.

Three different policies could remedy these issues.

Only non-profit organisations should run free schools and academies

Ranging from global charities to targeted UK initiatives, non-profit organisations vary in both size and scale. Some well-known non-profit educational organisations include the Education Endowment Foundation, the National Association for Special Educational Needs (nasen) and Shine Trust. Non-profit organisations in education provide immense value by prioritising student outcomes over profit margins and shareholder dividends. They reinvest all surpluses directly into the learning experience, offer specialised support for vulnerable students, and help democratise access to high-quality education without commercial pressure.

During the expansion of free-schools and academies under Gove, despite many of them ostensibly being run as charities, many of the organisations brought in to assist with running the schools profit making.

There are three other major areas where non-profit organisations offer better outcomes than for-profit organisations in an education context:

1. Reinvestment back into education: in non-profit educational institutions, every financial decision is motivated by educational goals. All financial surpluses are poured directly back into the school to hire high-quality staff, upgrade equipment, or maintain facilities. In for-profit organisations the primary goal is profit, to the detriment of everything else.
2. Enhanced equity and access: non-profits are uniquely positioned to bridge resource gaps. They often use their funding to provide vital bursaries and scholarships, ensuring that a child’s socio-economic background is not a barrier to receiving an excellent education.
3. Protection from market volatility: removing the profit motive prevents the instability seen in some privatised systems, where corporate chains may close or sell schools for financial reasons and displace students. Removing the problem of fiscal speculation and the pressure of financial markets lifts this pressure from schools.

Give local government power over existing free schools and academies and prevent new ones from being set up without local oversight

Local government oversight over education ensures that schools remain connected to their communities: it allows for localised decision-making, where resources, curricula, and policies can be tailored to the specific demographic, economic, and cultural needs of a region rather than operating under a one-size-fits-all national mandate.

The irony of Gove’s reforms was that the creation of free-schools and academies was supposed to decentralise schools from the authority of the state i.e. Statism. However, removing local government oversight had the opposite effect as free market ideology overrode a broad, balanced curriculum and made the schools immune to standard regulatory frameworks. In other words, one ideological agenda replaced another, with worse outcomes.

Here are three more reasons why local government oversight is far more valuable than the current model of removing non-localised decision making.

1. Community rooted decision making: local governments understand the unique complexities of their areas. Elected local officials are accessible to parents and can ensure that school programs directly reflect the values, priorities, and voices of the community in that locality.
2. Integrated Support Systems: education does not exist in a vacuum. Local government oversight enables schools to effectively coordinate with local health services, social care, housing, and youth organisations to provide holistic support for students and their families, unlike the current system.
3. Special Educational Needs Delivery (SEND): local authorities are usually responsible for assessing and funding complex education, health, and care plans. Localised management allows for more seamless integration with regional health and community services. Removing local government oversight makes it far more difficult to achieve this outcome.

All state schools must follow the national curriculum, however, national government should allow greater autonomy within local government in respect of how it is implemented

One of the planks of the reforms implemented by Gove is that the creation of free-schools and academies was that these types of schools were not obliged to follow the national curriculum, so had more flexibility than state schools. Many of them used this flexibility to expand their curriculum, offering a wider range of subjects and covering them in a more rigorous way. This came at a cost.

Three reasons why following a national curriculum is preferable

1. Consistency and continuity: a national curriculum provides stability; if a family relocates, a child can seamlessly continue their education without gaps in their learning journey. Conversely, not following a national curriculum means that some cohorts will receive a ‘better’ quality of education, by virtue of the fact that some students will be taught a more rigorous set of subjects than others.
2. Educational equity: this ensures that every student, regardless of socio-economic status or geographic location in the country, has access to the same core knowledge and cultural references. Free schools and academies that fail to follow the national curriculum will allow some pupils to have an unfair advantage over others, irrespective of ability.
3. Framework for teachers: this reduces the administrative and planning burden on educators by providing a structured framework, while still leaving them the autonomy to develop targeted lessons to address children’s different needs. By allowing teachers the option of developing lessons in a more independent manner, they are encouraged to engage with their subjects rather than simply acting as ciphers delivering of pre-packaged scripts.

Following on from this autonomy in how lessons are delivered, national government should allow local government greater autonomy for schools in how they deliver the national curriculum. This would involve greater involvement of head teachers, senior staff, parents and the local government in the planning and delivery of the curriculum.

Free schools and academies can still retain a high degree of decentralisation without being bound by a centrally prescribed curriculum or the ideology behind the current model.

I hope I have made the case for a liberal approach to education, by detaching it from the ever-increasing trend towards privatisation and treating it as a public good rather than a private commodity – an aspiration which, as liberals, we should favour.

Kayed Al-Haddad is spokesperson for The Liberal Party for Economics, Fiscal Policy and Monetary Policy.