Today George Osborne, the current shadow chancellor and most likely the UK’s chancellor within 9 months, casually announced that which I have been dreading for a while now: The end of the states responsibility for education. He didn’t quite put it in these words of course, but in popular right wing phrases involving consumer choice and ends to state monopolies. You can find the full transcript of the interview here, but I will quote the relevant section:

“In education, you know we are looking at bringing in new providers – private companies or voluntary groups or charities – that can offer state education paid for by the taxpayer, but offer a choice to parents and break up the state monopoly on the state provision of education.”

It is disgraceful that as a result of bailing out private interests in the banking sector, we will now be taking a step back from one of the most fundamental human needs and rights: Education. it might be that competition will spur the education system into some needed changes that it might otherwise not easily implement. But I think it more likely that a competition with a private education sector that is less restrained by government bureaucracy and funding limitations will not have a fair chance in this arena. And once education has become a for-profit business, will we have any chance of ensuring that every child and adult has access to an equal support for the deployment of their talents, both for their own benefit as for society as a whole?

I doubt it.

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