Privatization and ‘destatization’: school autonomy as the ‘Anglo neoliberalization’ of Irish education policy

Abstract

Symbolic of the rise of neoliberal principles in Irish education policy, there is now a move towards advancing school autonomy and decentralizing decision-making to individual schools, possibly emulating the academy model that has become widespread in England. Increasing the freedom and independence of schools may involve using private actors to provide what has traditionally been the service of the state, but it will most definitely involve schools behaving more like private sector organizations. While some of the new powers that would be devolved to schools might seem attractive, especially in how they are presented at an official level, this paper highlights how features of autonomous schools that may initially seem appealing are, in practice, likely to be unsuited to the Irish context. In this regard, this paper advises that school autonomy should not be advanced in Ireland.

Keywords:

• privatization
• destatization
• neoliberalism
• school autonomy
• academies
• Ireland

Notes on contributor

Craig Skerritt, Educated at University College Cork and University College London. He is a former post-primary school teacher and school leader now working in the higher education sector. He is a researcher at the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, Dublin City University where he also lectures on both undergraduate and postgraduate initial teacher education programmes. He is also the Policy and International Programmes Manager at the Royal Irish Academy, and a member of both the Sociological Association of Ireland and the Educational Studies Association of Ireland.

ORCID

Craig Skerritt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3695-758X

Notes

1. The school autonomy movement in England in recent years has seen a reduction in the role of local education authorities as it has enabled individual schools (e.g. academies) to gain increased freedom, power, and responsibility. Nonetheless, at this time, we can see here how Ireland was looking across the Irish Sea to what England was doing and considering importing ‘English-style’ structures.