Direct Education Scheduler

Michael Gove, who described those opposed to academies as ‘ideologues happy with failure’. Chris Ison/PA

The education secretary, Michael Gove, has risked infuriating thousands of teachers and councillors by describing those opposed to academies as “ideologues happy with failure”.

In his sharpest attack yet on those against academies – one of the coalition’s flagship education reforms – Gove warned that he would plough on with the programme regardless of critics.

“Change is coming. And to those who want to get in the way, I have just two words: hands off,” he said in a speech at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College, an academy in south-east London.

Gove said he was frustrated by some “obstructive” local authorities and areas, such as Haringey in north London, where he said he had been asked “not to challenge the leadership of the lowest performing schools”.

“For years hundreds of children have grown up effectively illiterate and innumerate ,” he said. “In one of the most disadvantaged parts of our capital city poor children have been deprived of the skills they need to succeed.”

Gove, who is often described by his adversaries as an ideologue, entitled his speech: “Who are the ideologues now?”.

“The new ideologues are the enemies of reform, the ones who put doctrine ahead of pupils’ interests,” he said. “Every step of the way, they have sought to discredit our policies, calling them divisive, destructive, ineffective, unpopular, unworkable – even ‘a crime against humanity’  … They are putting the ideology of central control ahead of the interests of children.

“They are more concerned with protecting old ways of working than helping the most disadvantaged children succeed in the future. Anyone who cares about social justice must want us to defeat these ideologues and liberate the next generation from a history of failure.”

“It’s time we called them what they are: ideologues … it’s the bigoted backward bankrupt ideology of a leftwing establishment that perpetuates division and denies opportunity. And it’s an ideology that’s been proven wrong time and time again.”

There are now 1,529 academies, compared with 200 in the last days of Labour. In an average week the Department for Education processes 20 applications from schools wanting to convert to become academies, Gove said.

There has been muted take-up of primary schools to become academies. Just 700 primaries have become – or are becoming – academies.

Gove admitted that there was “more to be done” and said his officials had identified more than 200 primaries with the “worst records”.

“We have identified 10 local authorities with unacceptably high numbers of under-performing primaries. We are working now to transform them into academies,” he said.

Headteachers have argued that it is excellent teachers and leaders that make great schools, not structural change, such as independence from local authorities.

But Gove said there was evidence, “built on by successive governments, both Labour and Conservative” that turning a school into an academy enabled schools to improve. At one point in the speech he quoted Tony Blair’s description, in the former prime minster’s memoirs, of why academies are effective.

Teaching unions expressed anger at the speech.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said Gove’s comments were an “insult to all the hardworking and dedicated teachers, school leaders, support staff and governors in our schools.

“The forced academy programme is about bullying schools into academy status against the wishes of school communities and their local authorities who are best placed to judge what support any particular school may need, not an external sponsor with an eye to the future profits to be made out of the government’s programme of privatising England’s schools.”

Blower said the academy reforms were “wrecking” local authority education services. “Each time a school becomes an academy, funding is removed from the LEA, reducing services and support to remaining schools. It has nothing to do with school improvement but is part of an ideologically driven agenda to dismantle our current system of local accountability for education.”

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders , said headteachers against academies were “not the ‘enemies of promise’, but professionals dedicated to improving the lives of young people”.

He said: “The keys to school improvement are excellent teaching and leadership and a relentless determination to stamp out failure.

“Many ASCL members have decided that academy status will be the best route to that goal, many others have decided that they can best achieve this as LA maintained community schools. What really matters are the outcomes their students achieve rather than the type of school they go to.”

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