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Race and education expert calls for change in policies to stem this trend
A LEADING academic has said that black pupils achieve worse GCSE results in academies than in local authority schools with a similar intake.
Professor David Gillborn, director of the centre for research in race and education based at the University of Birmingham, pointed to the Government’s data which revealed that while other ethnicities performed better, attainment among black pupils leaves much to be desired.
According to the Department for Education’s Equalities Impact Assessment: Academies Bill published in 2010, 37.1 per cent of black children enrolled at academies achieved five top GCSEs including maths and English.
But in local authority-run schools with similar characteristics, that figure was 41 per cent among children of African and Caribbean heritage.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “These are not the most up-to-date figures. In fact, results in sponsored academies are improving at a faster rate than in other state-funded schools. Analysis published by the department last year shows that, in 2011, the proportion of black pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and mathematics was 2.5 percentage points higher in sponsored academies than in similar council-run schools.”
For other ethnic groups including white and Asian, this pattern was in reverse with both groups performing slightly better.
Academies tend to have a higher proportion of black pupils than other ethnic groups. Gillborn, a guest speaker at the annual London Schools and the Black Child conference, said: “The Government claims that academies are going raise standards for everyone but, actually, its own data suggests academies are bad news for black students.
“When compared with similar local authority schools they do worse...this has not stopped the policy being rolled out across the country. [The Government] has taken no steps whatsoever to identify where this problem might be arising from, let alone taking steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen in every single new academy.”
CONCERNS: Guests at the LSBC conference
Academies, introduced under a Labour government in 2000, are self-governing schools which are directly funded by central government, with additional financial support from private sponsors.
In May 2010, there were 203 academies in England, but by 2012 there were more than 1,957.
The schools are normally set up to replace failing schools in order to boost attainment, particular in inner city areas.
The LSBC conference, now in its 10th year, was created by Labour MP Diane Abbott.
This year’s theme, held at the Institute of Education, was Black Children & Education: After Gove, what next?, in response to a number of unpopular policies being introduced by Education secretary Michael Gove. These include a failed bid to replace GCSEs with the English Baccalaureate, or EBacc.
According to data, pupils who identify as Black Caribbean or Mixed white and black Caribbean would be disproportionally affected by the change. For example, of the 48.6 per cent of Black Caribbean students who meet the Government’s benchmark of success, only 7.6 per cent would meet the EBacc standard.
But on Tuesday (June 4), reports emerged of plans to replace them with the proposed I-levels, or Intermediate Levels. Gillborn added: “History shows us that the only time we get any movement towards greater race equality is through the direct pressure of the black community.
Without that pressure, the education system has historically ignored black kids. At the moment the situation is worse. They’re just being ignored.”