No plot, no conspiracy, just cultural Conservatism, argues Steve Beauchampe.
So there was no ‘Trojan Horse’ plot. It was all a hoax, a spiteful, vengeful lie that has caused untold worries to parents throughout large swathes of East Birmingham, disrupted the schooling of thousands of pupils and taken resources from Birmingham City Council at a time when they can least afford it. Enthusiastically taken up by both the local and national media, the story has damaged both Birmingham’s reputation and community relations in the city. At very least the perpetrator(s) of this hoax should be exposed and held accountable.
With the issue immediately politicised by Education Secretary Michael Gove, a man who has long believed in the notion of Muslim extremists trying to take over schools, regulatory body OFSTED, headed by Gove appointee Michael Wilshaw, went in looking for a plot. Following what is claimed by at least one school to have been an extremely biased method of inspection, the schools inspectorate found if not a plot, then a smoking gun.
Despite both the importance and level of public interest in his findings, Wilshaw decided to release his report not at a press conference where it could be circulated and journalists could ask questions, but via a video, a tactic which absolved him and OFSTED of any immediate public scrutiny for their claims. This move was particularly insulting to Birmingham and those individuals and organisations judged in the OFSTED report. Wilshaw’s later interview on BBC 2’s Newsnight was a poor and inadequate substitute for his dereliction of duty earlier in the day.
More so because the OFSTED report, contested though many of its findings were, essentially claimed that in many of the inspected schools conservative religious values were increasingly being practised. A legitimate issue, of public concern and debate, although a long way from the plot to indoctrinate pupils with extremist ideology that ‘Trojan Horse’ had been portrayed as.
In his statement to Parliament later on Monday, Gove plucked half-truths, twisted and contorted facts and out-of-context remarks from OFSTEDs then still to be scrutinised report, before blustering irrelevant political chaff about forcing schools to promote British values (they already do so). As with his repeated use of terminology such as ‘plot’ and ‘extremism; Gove failed to define what this meant. As befits the man, he largely dodged responsibility for the rôle played by his own department in overseeing the alleged failings at the many Academy schools criticised in the report.
Here perhaps is the nub of the issue; the fracturing of the education system, first via Academies (introduced under Blair), which are no longer overseen by the local education authority, but by Whitehall (a staggering centralisation and loss of local control of state education) and the recent introduction of Free Schools, funded by local authorities, but neither responsible or accountable to them. The mini empires that academy trusts are being encouraged to build by the government (and with such arms length oversight) are inevitably storing up all manner of trouble. Wilshaw’s suggestion that a limited tier of local accountability be introduced at municipal level is no answer, but would simply allow both the Secretary of State and the schools inspectorate to pass the buck and blame the local council for failings, even though it can be expected that any powers they are given will be very small. Instead, academies should be made directly accountable to the local authority, or preferably replaced by wholly accountable direct grant schools, whereupon they might begin to see themselves as educational establishments rather than as businesses.
There is one further lesson to be drawn. Those religious conservatives castigated by OFSTED and others were essentially acting in accordance with Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society idea. By involving themselves in the governance of their local schools, they were engaging in precisely the kind of citizenship that Cameron envisaged developing in the wake of the dismantling of local government. Central government cannot expect local residents to take over these responsibilities, where ‘light touch regulation’ is so often the mantra, and then hope to micro-manage the cultural framework in which such communities choose to operate.