Adam Smith Institute

I  fear that Melissa Benn doesn't understand one of the reasons that we like markets so much.

And there is now a surprising amount of agreement across the political spectrum about what constitutes a good school.......There is widespread recognition of the need for human scale institutions, be it smaller classes and now smaller schools. It's also widely agreed that we need good order in the classroom; more engaging teaching; strong, autonomous heads, and more spending on those with the greatest needs; the so-called "pupil premium".

That these things are now agreed right across the politicl specturm means, according to Ms. Benn, that all schools should thus be like this in one rigid system. Which is to miss one of the basic reasons why we have markets at all: they're the way that we can have innovation, the way that people can try new things and see what works.

Leave aside the point that what everyone now agrees makes a good school was exactly what everyone agreed did not make a good one in former decades, leave aside education itself in fact. We don't presume that we now make the very best computers that anyone will ever make, there are any number pointing out that cars need to be powered differently, there are, you might have noted, those who wonder whether our method of financial regulation is quite the best one that could ever be devised. And how are people to try out the possible new ways of doing things? By doing them of course and seeing what works, what people actually want at the price that it can be done. In a market in other words.

Exactly the same is true of schools and education: it's the height of hubris to assume that we, now, have had the revelation denied to all previous generations as to how a perfect school system should be run, that those who follow us will not devise better methods. And for them to test what may or may not work we need a market in alternative methods of education organisation rather than one huge system devised from the centre.

After all, it was the fact that we did not have a single rigid system, that there were alternatives to central State control, that led us to overturn the previous orthodoxy and agree now on the above list of things that does make a good school. Arguing that we should now abolish such markets in organisation to to argue that we abolish the very thing that allowed us to uncover this precious knowledge.

The Tories' plan to permit up to 5,000 new independently run schools to be set up would be a major step towards improving Britain’s education system. Their plans are based upon the Swedish model for education, which was established during the 1990’s.

Swedes are the world leaders in promoting ‘free-market education’ based upon a system where organisations or individuals can set up an independent school that is then funded by the state.

Such a free-market approach to education seems the most sensible way to increase both competition and efficiency. This new breed of schools would work at its best if given greater freedom. By being able to select which examinations are taken (for example the International Baccalaureate, European or American exams), students can choose to join a school at which their needs will be more accurately met. This extra competition within the market would mean that students from poorly performing schools would be free to move to a better one, forcing underperforming schools to either close or improve the quality of their service.

In order to meet the demands of students, firms such as Kunskapsskolan (who have already nodded towards an expansion into the UK) have developed and specialised within Sweden. This specialisation allows them to innovate to provide better quality services.

This type of system would focus the attention of education towards meeting the needs and choices of students and from away meeting targets set by Whitehall and the national curriculum, resulting in a much more effective use of resources.

For more on the Swedish model of education reform, see our recent publication Open Access for UK Schools (PDF)

With a target of 50 percent of school leavers going to university by 2010, the government is encouraging more students than ever before to enter higher education. As with any target setting, there will be a divergent relationship between the quantity and the quality of education received by students.

But this target is not the only way in which the government is meddling with university admissions. They are constantly encouraging universities to accept more applicants from ‘lower-income’ backgrounds. The argument is that they may not have been able to afford the private school fees or tuition that middle class children may have benefited from. But by interfering with such blunt schemes the government is inevitably disadvantaging other students. The latest addition to the UCAS (University and Colleges Admission Services) form is a declaration of the students’ parents’ occupations – as if this gives any indication as to the aptitude of a candidate to study!

Why does the government continue to disadvantage certain young people of equal opportunities? If a child receives extra football coaching outside of school they aren’t told they must play with their shoelaces tied together to make it fair on the opposition!

As the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University stated recently, universities are designed for educating students rather than acting as ‘engines for promoting social justice’. Essentially, the government is trying to cover up its poor performance in education, but by making it easier for certain students to gain university entrance the government is reducing their incentives to study whilst at school. This benefits nobody.