Speaking at the TUC Congress in Manchester, Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said: "This coalition government rushed through the legislation to create new academies and free schools with indecent haste.
"Not since the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 has legislation not intended to counter terrorism or deal with economic crisis been rushed through all parliamentary stages in quite this fashion.
"And yet, despite the Secretary of State’s claim in the early summer that 1,100 schools had applied, only 32 academies opened this term. Hardly a flood, more, as Brendan [general secretary of the TUC] said, ‘a feeble dribble’.
"The education unions’ ongoing campaign against academies and free schools can genuinely claim to have had some successes. But there is still much to do. We oppose academies and free schools – or what we should properly call ‘free market schools’ – because they represent privatisation. In the case of academies, assets which should be community assets are being handed over to unaccountable institutions."
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