Educational publishers and suppliers have called on the education secretary to suspend the creation of the government’s new national online academy because of “a lack of evidence and of due scrutiny”.
As Tes revealed in March, the government plans to make Oak National Academy a new government arm’s-length body (ALB), providing free curriculum resources to schools.
But in a letter to James Cleverly today, bodies representing educational publishers, authors and suppliers ask the Department for Education to “reconsider” its “radical plans”.
A lack of scrutiny over the proposal has been “exacerbated by current political uncertainty”, they say.
The letter is signed by the heads of the Publishers Association, British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), Society of Authors, Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), Publishers’ Licensing Services, and the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Today’s move follows previous warnings to the department over a “lack of due process” in setting up the new quango.
In May, BESA told Nadhim Zahawi, who was education secretary at the time, that it was considering seeking a judicial review over the decision on Oak. While that legal action has been paused, concerns remain.
Today, while the resource associations say they “wholeheartedly support” the department’s efforts to support teachers in education recovery, they say that ALBs are “an expensive use of already strained public money”.
The letter states that “all the current evidence indicates” the department is “pursuing a major market intervention into the school resources market, which teachers neither want nor need”.
It also claims that the DfE’s current proposals could lead to the “collapse of the commercial education resources sector”.
It asks for the department to “pause” the proposals and the procurement processes “in order to properly consult with stakeholders, to assess need, and to find an endpoint that achieves a more proportionate and sustainable future for Oak National Academy’s assets”.
In a written statement accompanying the letter, Caroline Wright, director general of BESA, said that “instead of inflicting huge damage to the curriculum publishing industry and publishers’ work”, BESA believes the DfE should “focus on funding and addressing the more pressing real challenges and issues being flagged by school leaders currently”.
She added: “I hope that today’s open letter, signed by the key industry representative organisations, will bring this issue to the attention of the new education secretary, and help inform the ongoing Conservative leadership discussions over the most impactful use of our limited public funds.”
Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association, said that the organisation and its members had been “making the case to the DfE for months” that the current plans for the curriculum body will “drastically reduce teacher autonomy and choice over the resources they use in the long term”.
He added that “trying to turn [Oak] into a one-sized-fits-all state publisher” was not the right way to help it find a “new sustainable footing” and warned it will “unfairly drive out the existing resources on the market”.
A Department for Education spokesperson said that the decision to create the ALB was taken ”following careful consideration”.
The spokesperson added that the ALB will “support teachers to deliver excellent lessons, help manage teachers’ workload, and build on the huge success of Oak National Academy”.
They added that the DfE has met with BESA, PA and other trade organisations “on a number of occasions over recent months” to “share [its] thinking”.
This included a series of “market warming webinars”.
“The Department continues to engage with stakeholders, including BESA and PA, on this policy. Market engagement is an important part of this process and we welcome views from the sector on our proposals.”
Oak National Academy has been approached for comment.
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