Friday 06th May 2022
The UK has a strong history of supporting commercial suppliers within the education sector, which has fostered small businesses into multi-national, multi-billion-pound organisations giving British teachers and pupils access to globally leading educational resources. The UK’s EdTech sector has continued throughout the pandemic to be a thriving industry, growing by over 71% during the height of the pandemic – outstripping global growth by a factor of four. Resources produced by companies of all sizes across the country continue to be globally sought after, with over 40% of investment in Europe spent in the UK.Â
The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) is supportive of government initiatives which increase the use of high-quality curriculum resources in order to help support teachers and provide improved pupil access to inspirational learning materials. However, BESA is extremely concerned that the DfE’s plans to centralise procurement of curriculum resources through the establishment of an arms-length body will distort the level playing field in-which commercial suppliers currently operate within. BESA believes that such a policy would be disruptive enough to end the commercial viability of this sector, ending the current wealth of choice teachers have over which resources best suit their specific needs.
A similar scheme in Poland back in 2014 proved to have devastating effects on the domestic publishing industry and the quality of educational resources. Until the start of the Digital School programme, all textbooks were produced by educational publishers, without direct support from the state. The ministry’s only role was to certify textbooks as compliant with the curriculum. From 2014 however, schools were strongly encouraged to avoid commercial publications and instead choose the ministry’s free-to-use digital textbook platform. This led to a 10% contraction in the publishing sector in the first year alone with many commercial providers leaving the market. This has meant that more teachers are opting for educational resources made for a one-size-fits-all curricular approach which is usually seen as sub-optimal when compared to a variety of choice.Â
BESA is extremely concerned that to date the DfE has not carried out the relevant independent research or impact analysis necessary to inform the development of their policy plans. We believe that Government curriculum policy should involve the sector as part of the solution and be informed by up-to-date independent research and be focused on addressing school needs and priorities. Any resulting curriculum policy proposals should be subjected to a market assessment impact analysis to identify the likely impact on the commercial market and longer-term consequences for schools and the UK economy.
Instead, the DfE, by its own admission, has based proposals for the establishment of an arms-length body and UK-wide online national academy on the basis of a DfE curriculum research paper commissioned in 2018 of just 39 English schools, less than two dozen Ofsted inspection reports of English schools and a handful of additional partisan evidence sources. No up-to-date post-lockdown independent Government research was commissioned or independent research involving the devolved administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, despite the fundamental shift in the challenges facing schools as a result of covid.
In the absence of any DfE commissioned research on the issue, BESA commissioned an independent survey in February 2022 of English schools. Interim survey findings of responses from 584 schools indicate that while schools reported high use of Oak resources over the past year, only a fifth of primary curriculum leaders and very few secondary equivalents suggest that it will remain important to them for the DfE to create and provide free teaching and learning resources.  Â
The survey also finds that only a quarter of primary and a tenth of secondary schools and academies believe that free content compares well with paid-for content and 63% of all schools responding were against the DfE creating and providing free content once normal classroom teaching resumes with only 14% in favour.
BESA believes that the DfE’s failure to carry out vital evidence gathering prior to the announcement of the Schools White Paper risks wasting valuable public funding that could potentially be better spent more effectively support the more urgent priorities and challenges facing schools as they support their pupils and build back from covid. BESA believes this to be in breach of the consultation and relevant consideration and rational decision making elements of the Civil Service Code of Conduct, the Crown Commercial Service’s principles of transparency and equality of treatment, the Cabinet Office’s Open Policy Making guidance and the Cabinet Office’s Approvals Process for the Creation of New Arms-Length Bodies.
Despite repeated calls from BESA for the DfE to engage in a proper consultation regarding its acquisition, it has failed to provide sufficient information regarding how this decision has been reached, which BESA and commercial suppliers would legitimately expect to be involved in. Â
Throughout the pandemic, educational suppliers played and critical role in the continuation of learning whilst schools were still closed, BESA members alone contributed over £36m in free educational resources during the first three months of lockdown. Despite this experience, educational suppliers are still considered by some as separate to the education ecosystem, and the DfE’s pursuit of a centralised curriculum body is symptomatic of that. It would therefore be BESA’s recommendation that the FED’s 10-year plan should recognise suppliers as an important stakeholder group and encourage a strong partnership between educational leaders, suppliers and employers. The FED should therefore setup a new ‘Supplier’s Council’ to enable stakeholders to have input into the system and rename the ‘Business Council’ as the ‘Employers Council’ so that suppliers are not conflated with employers.
Thank youÂ
Caroline Wright, Director General