Objections to Michael Gove’s educational reforms

Is anyone able to explain why there were objections to Michael Gove’s educational reforms?

I’m not a fan of the man at all, that said, I felt he was on to something when he introduced educational reforms, as they seemed to be bringing state school standards inline with private schools.

Gove’s reforms were free schools, widened academisation and curriculum and examination reform.

Free schools were always a political self-indulgence. An staggering amount of money was spent on schools in places where there was often insufficient demand. The programme was vastly under-managed and it never occurred to Gove that people might have ulterior motives for setting up such schools.

Academisation wasn’t Gove’s policy; it came from Blair. Gove merely expanded it enormously. He did so without effective controls. At one point academies were being supervised through his junior minister’s private office. Lack of effective supervision has meant a lot of fraud and things like the Muslim extremist takeover of some Birmingham schools. Again there was massive naivety about those wanting to run schools.

Gove’s curriculum and examination reforms appeared to be , and probably were, simply his own personal prejudices. Vast amounts of detail were lavished on history and English literature, Gove’s own interests, with virtually no consideration of science. It is a disgrace that lab work no longer counts towards science GCSE and A level grades. Only someone with no interest in science would have allowed that. Gove essentially wanted to replicate his own education for the nation. The virtual abolition of AS levels seems to have been due to no more than them not existing in his day.

Plus since his “reform” of gcse English there’s been a 20% drop in students studying English A level.

Maybe it is also because people just don't see the use in it anymore? Like, STEM is clearly the superior option these days.

That wouldn’t explain the rises in psychology and sociology A level over the same period of time.

That wouldn’t explain the rises in psychology and sociology A level over the same period of time.

He introduced the Ebacc - a league table measure in 5 core subjects. On this measure many schools performed dramatically worse. This is because for years schools had encouraged students to take easier GCSEs so as to get better grades and make the school look better. Unsurprisingly, many of these schools did not like the new measure.

He also reformed English and History to be more traditional i.e. focus on pre 20th classic literature and British history respectively. Those more on the left generally don't like this and want to focus on broader literature and non-British history, or at least be critical of British history.

Many reforms were done with little input from academics and experts in a pretty rushed manner.

My own editorial take would be that he was indeed trying to tighten up education and make it more like traditional private schools or grammar schools. However, this would have the effect of highlighting differences between the bright and "unbright" kids, which would make many schools look bad by holding everyone to the same standard.