Why the Tories turned to Sweden

Mike Baker says the Conservatives want to appeal to the mainstream

Fewer exams, more academies and, oh yes, more lessons on the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution.

Those were the education highlights from the Conservative Party conference. They may have popular appeal, but they also need closer inspection.

But just as interesting, were the things that were not mentioned.

The most obvious were grammar schools and academic selection. On these there was a deafening silence.

The Conservatives do not want to appear preoccupied with an academically gifted minority.

Many Tories would have cheered a promise to create more grammar schools. But the party leadership no longer sees that as a vote-winner.

'All shall have prizes'

Interestingly too, there was little about the traditional independent schools sector. That too would send out the wrong signals.

Nor did we hear anything about scrapping university tuition fees. That promise from the 2005 manifesto has been quietly dropped.

The realistic debate now is not about abolition but whether or not to raise the cap on fees.

In short, after several years of radical tub-thumping, the Conservatives now want to appeal to the mainstream.

There was no declaration of war on the teaching unions. Local councils were not vilified.

Mind you, David Cameron could not resist one rallying cry, declaring "war" on the "all shall have prizes"' philosophy and threatening to "fire" staff at the exams quango, the QCA, for encouraging 'dumbing down'.

There was also an absence of complaint about the expansion of universities.

The Conservatives no longer think it is wrong to aim to get more than 50% of young people into university. Instead, they have tried to out-Blair the Labour Party.

So instead of the government's target of 400 City Academies, the Conservatives want more than double that number.

In Sweden, the new private schools are allowed to make a profit

To use a Tony Blair phrase, the Conservatives want "independent state schools", each free to develop their own specialism and ethos.

However, after 10 years of Blairite government, has that revolution already happened?

Schools already have freedom over their budgets. The great majority of secondary schools are already specialist schools, academies, or are about to be run by trusts.

And parents and other groups already have powers to set up a new schools.

So the Conservatives, looking for some clear policy water, have gone for the Swedish Plan.

No, they haven't been down to IKEA. Instead, they have bought into the reform which, in 1992, effectively gave Swedish parents a voucher which they could use to "buy" a place at an independent school if they were unhappy with their local state schools.

Since then the independent sector in Sweden has grown from educating around 1% of children to 15%, although as yet the new independent schools have not spread much beyond urban areas.

It is an intriguing idea that plays well to the idea of parental choice.

No selection

Although there have been some concerns in Sweden, the reform is widely regarded there as a success.

When I visited private schools in Stockholm a few years ago, I was impressed with the system.

The schools I visited were in nondescript, former office buildings. This was low-budget private education but parents liked it, mainly because it offered less formal teaching than the state system.

But there are some key differences between the Conservative proposals and the Swedish system.

In Sweden, the new private schools are allowed to make a profit.

About half of them are for-profit companies. Under the Conservatives' plans, there is no provision for commercial profits.

The other big difference is that Sweden had virtually no private schools before the reforms.

In the UK the independent sector is already strong. It is also closely associated with expensive facilities, smaller classes and academic selection.

The Swedish system gives independent schools the same per pupil funding as state schools plus a small premium for capital costs.

It forbids them from charging top-up fees. Nor are the Swedish private schools allowed to select pupils by ability.

So the Conservatives' version of the Swedish system would see English private schools having to compete without any of the advantages enjoyed by most of the country's existing independent schools.

Rhetoric?

For these reasons, there must remain some doubts over how easily the Swedish model will transplant to English soil.

The Conservatives also won headlines this week for offering fewer exams. But the reality is that they are as committed as the government to keeping tests as a measure of school accountability.

Yes, they are consulting on getting rid of the national tests for seven year-olds in England.

But they are considering replacing these with a new "standardised reading test" for six year-olds at the end of Year One.

Finally, what of the promise to put more emphasis on "the narrative of British history", highlighting what Michael Gove called the 'great things that we as Britons have achieved'.

Personally, I think there is much to be said for more emphasis on the narrative of British history.

But I also detect a tension between the Conservative's rhetoric of setting schools and teachers free to follow their own professional judgement and the habit of telling them exactly how to teach.

And it's not just history lessons they wish to prescribe; they also want teachers to use a particular brand of phonics and to organise their pupils into ability groups more often.

And, once again, these policies do not greatly distinguish them from the government, which also encourages setting and phonics.

So, despite trying hard to look different, the Conservatives - with the exception of their Swedish-style plans - are still finding it a struggle to be distinctive from the government.

But by focusing on the mainstream, and no longer picking fights with teacher unions and education authorities, they are promoting themselves as potentially better managers of the system than the current government.