The promise of Michael Gove’s Free Schools programme — as distinct from his
Academies programme — is slow to materialise. What seemed like the government’s
most radical and important reform has stalled as expected take-up has fallen far short of expectations. 350,000 new school places are required to meet increasing demand by 2015 — to address
this, the Conservatives had set their sights on setting up 3,000 new Free Schools in nine years. But, so far, there have been just 323 applications, with only a handful due to open in September
2011, and the DfE capital budget is set to fall by 60 per cent to £3.4 billion by 2014-15. This constitutes a massive capital shortfall. A storm is gathering in education.
A new report published by the Adam Smith Institute today, Profit-Making Free Schools: Unlocking the Potential of England’s Proprietorial School Sector, argues that this challenge can be met by giving true freedom to Free Schools and allowing profit-making schools to operate within the programme.
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