If you wanted to get an idea of how the destruction of local government’s role in education has impacted on schools, secondaries in particular, then you should visit the Academies Show in London. Rows and rows of facilities and service support companies are in abundance—payroll, HR, financial planning, estate management,
IT systems. The list is endless and the competition intense. Education business has boomed with Academisation.
It seemed a little weird to attend an education show where education is not
much in evidence; at least in the exhibition stands, it wasn’t always quite like this. But it is indicative of the cold wind that is blowing through education that many of the companies supporting teaching, learning and frontline leadership are no longer there. An arctic blast for all except the service support industry, it would seem.
A second impression is that it can’t last. So many companies competing for the same turf heralds a process of consolidation. Indeed, it is already beginning with the recent high-profile acquisition of Babcock 4S by Strictly Education.
Decline and resurgence
The career and current strategy of Amanda Fisher, the former teacher and now CEO of Strictly Education who has engineered the acquisition, charts the rise, decline and resurgence of the role of the private sector in education.