No School for Michael Gove's Children

Being denied the right to go to school is something we oft think of as happening 'somewhere else'. The outstanding speech by Malala to the United Nations this week being a great exemplar. Yet it is happening here too, not by force of arms but by legislation. 120,000 children will be denied a school place this September because provision of school places has been thrown into chaos by Michael Gove. His neo-Stalinist desire to seize control of schools from local people has led to the replacement of School Organisation Plans that took account of local need and parents wishes, with a dogmatic driven desire to spawn academies and free schools regardless of the resultant localised over-provision. Thus we have the absurd phenomena of Free Schools opening around the country at great public expense, which are less than half full. Yet there are dramatic shortages of primary school places elsewhere. To hide this fact Michael Gove has used executive powers to allow schools to refuse admission to children seeking to start class on September 1^st of the year of the their 5^th birthday; a decision taken without Parliamentary approval. Far from seeing a growth in Localism, so trumpeted by David Cameron when he forged his coalition after failing to win the General Election, school provision has been centralised in Whitehall, with scant regard to local need. As a result £millions will be poured into empty schools that are not needed, whilst under-provision elsewhere will deny education to 120,000 children.