Michael Gove, once poster-boy for grammar school Toryism and rising star within the party, has added further fuel to the already sizeable flames currently lapping at the feet of the Academies Bill. After a quite ropey performance in front of the Education Select Committee last night, Gove was today caught out on a lie over his June 2 claim that over an “overwhelming” 1,100 schools had applied to become academies.
It emerged today that just 153 schools have applied for independent academy status. The remaining 947 schools are understood to have expressed vague murmurs of interest, rather than anything concrete.
Ed Balls, on-off-on-again candidate for Labour Leadership, accused Gove of “railroading” through reforms, arguing that ”the real reason for the rush [through the Commons] was to avoid proper scrutiny for a deeply flawed piece of legislation.”
