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  • Essay / The influence of privatization on education in Scotland or England

    Privatization is a word in which in recent decades has become more common across the political spectrum. With the privatization of Royal Mail (for the first time in its 500-year history), British Telecoms PLC, British Airways and Jaguar, we will analyze how one of the UK's largest sectors is threatened with being completely privatized and how privatization has influenced the education sector in recent decades. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Privatization of an industry often leads to increased competition within a market as the government reduces regulations of a industry to reduce pressure on the government. Privatization of the education sector began "under the New Right government (1979-1997) and continued under the New Labor Party (1997-2010) and the Coalition/Conservative government (2010 – present) 'today)'. (Revise Sociology), this led to the exogenous privatization of the market, that is to say the creation of academic schools in England, all run by companies whose main objectives are all linked to business. This means that the goal of academies is to generate a high profit rather than putting the student at the forefront of the company's goals. Worryingly, the Guardian's Helene Mulholland and Jessica Shepherd state: "Around 40% of secondary schools in England are now academies" (The Guardian 2013). The problem is that academies were initially set up to benefit schools in deprived areas or failing schools, but “this has changed dramatically to encompass all types of schools – successful or not”. To go further, priority is given to the “best performing schools”. This then leads to problems related to the achievement gap. Marketization or endogenous privatization is a term coined during the Thatcher era which refers to the application of market forces to education and the reduction of state control over the education sector. Additionally, it increases competition between schools. Some of the factors that promoted commodification were “funding formula”, “exam rankings”. The achievement gap has been reduced significantly by recent reforms within the sector. All academies have their own admissions policies as to which pupils can attend a particular school as well as free school meals. An important argument with academies and free school meals is that as free school meals are not provided by the academy authority, therefore, must fund them, leading to many budgetary issues in an academy. For example, a study by The Guardian states: “The University of Canary Wharf, in Tower Hamlets, London, has just 5.4% of students eligible for FSM, compared to 30% deprivation in its community. » The student/community ratio being somewhat compensated, this leads to questioning the structure of academies in England. Additionally, the extracurricular activities offered by a school are also an important part of an academy's budget. In Scotland, South Ayrshire Council provides a large majority of funding for secondary school students to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, an award that looks great on any job seeker's CV. However, many academics in England would never be able to compete with the funding required, as it would require a large portion of the budget to fund it. Another major player in the academy budget is salaryteachers. One of the newest agents to make headlines in recent months is performance-related pay. As with any private sector job, there is an opportunity to earn commissions, tips, bonuses and incentives. This is now starting to be implemented in academies. The subject raises many questions: how to measure the performance of a school? I think the first thing that comes to mind is exam results. It is evident that exam scores are higher in more privileged fields, which then leads to more privileged fields students receiving higher priority for acceptance into academies. This brings us back to the problem of the achievement gap. Tackling performance-related pay has proven to be a real challenge for the government as it raises issues such as work-life balance. It is clear that performance-based pay will encourage teachers to spend more time in the classroom or at home helping their students. “Personal goals set need to be relevant to teachers’ lives,” says Birchall. » While the academic system encourages the freedom of the school which is there to regulate all of these teachers' objectives, there are a staggering 442,000 full-time teachers working in English schools. Such a large number would prove difficult to regulate by any means. However, it is a system that works well in other private sectors. One of the most positive aspects of the privatization of education has been that it has undoubtedly increased competition between schools and raised standards due to the interest in attracting the highest performing students. However, this contradicts the real reason why academy system schools were created - to improve the performance of underperforming schools or schools in more deprived areas. private companies actually have the power to select the best schools throughout the country. Among other things, by putting our schools in the hands of private companies, they aim to keep costs as low as possible, which theoretically means it will be more efficient, but is the quality of our education being compromised? The construction of new schools and maintenance of buildings is another issue criticized due to privatization. The new school buildings were funded through the Private Finance initiative, another private organization leading the way in education. The PFI funded private companies to carry out the construction and, in return, the companies maintained the schools for a fixed period of time, often 25 to 35 years. However, a recent report into building defects "led to the closure of 17 Edinburgh schools" and "blamed poor construction quality and lack of supervision, rather than design problems or the funding model PFI”. This led to a documentary being made by the BBC asking "How safe is my school?" and asks the question of how reliable are private contractors? They seek to "maximize profits like any private sector organization and speed up the building programme, lowering the specification and quality of the design", said renowned Glasgow architect Alan Dunlop. As a result, we are paying more for lower quality for many decades to come. In addition to material deprivation (the inability to afford basic resources and services) is under the government's microscope. While he?