The Welsh and Scottish governments have hit out at UK government plans for a national online academy offering “the best lessons” from “the very best teachers”.
They say Westminster has “no remit” to establish a UK-wide academy, that they have not been consulted and that the existence of separate education systems in Scotland and Wales has not been taken into account.
Meanwhile, edtech industry leaders have questioned whether the UK government has evidence that there is headteacher demand for the “new digital education service”.
The plans for the free online resource were contained in the Levelling Up White Paper published yesterday. It says: “We will create the UK National Academy. Just as the UK pioneered the Open University, this new digital education service will support pupils from all backgrounds and areas of the UK to succeed at the very highest levels.”
It is unclear which organisation will run the UK National Academy and if Oak National Academy - created to provide online lessons and resources for teachers in England in response to the pandemic in April 2020 - will be involved.
Scotland and Wales ‘not consulted about UK-wide online academy’
However, a Welsh government spokesperson highlighted that, since 2012, Wales has been providing maintained schools with access to a wide range of digital infrastructure, services and resources via its Hwb digital learning platform.
Meanwhile, Scotland also has its own long-established digital learning platform - Glow - as well as the e-Sgoil (e-School), which has expertise in delivering live online lessons, and the West OS bank of pre-recorded lessons.
The Welsh government spokesperson said: “We are clear - education is devolved, and the UK government has no remit to establish a UK-wide academy which cuts across our responsibilities. We have not been included in discussions on a UK-wide academy.”
Responding to the plans, Scotland’s education secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, also stressed that “education is entirely devolved”.
“We have so far not been consulted by the UK government on their plans for an online ‘national academy’,” she said.
“These plans do not appear to take account of the fact that Scotland has a separate education system.”
Meanwhile, the British Educational Suppliers’ Association (BESA) said a survey of 1,306 schools showed that two-thirds of school leaders were “completely or mostly supported by existing tech and digital content providers” - and that their key concerns were actually around connectivity, CPD for staff and ICT funding.
BESA director-general Caroline Wright said the survey suggested that additional online provision in the form proposed by the Department for Education at Westminster was not “high on the needs list of headteachers currently”.
She said she looked forward to the DfE sharing “the analysis and evidence” that informed the plans, and added that there must be “a robust, fair, open and transparent competitive tender process” for the national academy.
Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Michael Gove, the former Westminster education secretary and now levelling up secretary, said: “Today, we are establishing a new digital UK national academy - just as the UK established the Open University to bring higher education to everyone, we are making available to every school student in the country high-quality online teaching, so geography is no barrier to opportunity.”
The Levelling Up White Paper states: “The UK government will create a new UK National Academy. It will support pupils from all backgrounds and areas to succeed at the very highest levels. This support will be made available across the UK. Just as the UK pioneered the world’s first national broadcasting service and established the Open University to bring higher education (HE) to all across the UK, the new UK National Academy will harness cutting-edge technology to ensure geography or income is no barrier to being academically stretched beyond the curriculum. The UK government is committed to working with the devolved administrations to explore how the UK National Academy can support students in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”
A draft copy of the Levelling Up White Paper, including a sentence about a new UK-wide national academy, was leaked to the BBC yesterday morning.
The draft said that the new organisation would “offer the best lessons” from “the very best teachers” online.
