A private education firm involved in education secretary Michael Gove’s free schools programme has been accused by parents in one of its independent schools of “milking profits” at the expense of children’s education.
Cognita, run by former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead, has come under attack from parents at one of its most successful institutions, the Southbank International School. They accuse Cognita, the country’s largest owner of independent schools with a turnover of £150m, of turning the London school into a “money-making machine”. The row threatens to embarrass the government as it pushes through its plans for schools to operate outside local authority control.
Cognita is one of a number of for-profit companies keen to get involved in the government’s vision for education as set out by Gove, who admits having no “ideological objection” to their involvement. At present free schools cannot be owned by profit-making institutions, but parents are permitted to lease premises, buy products and contract out the school management to private for-profit companies.
Cognita claims on its website to be working with a number of parents on free school projects. It also continues to advertise its services on a website run by a government-funded charity, the New Schools Network, set up to assist parents in launching a free school. Woodhead last month urged ministers to “bite the political bullet” and allow for-profit companies to run publicly funded state schools. He said unless Gove “involves the profit companies he’s never going to get the number of free schools that he wants”.
Last night Martin Johnson, the deputy general secretary of the education union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said the development confirmed his worst fears about the involvement of private companies in free schools. “Our members are growing increasingly concerned by the movement of unelected, unaccountable, profit-making organisations into our education system”, he said. “There are a number of big holes in the government’s plans, but by far the largest is accountability.”
The row at Southbank International was prompted by complaints from a group of parents, known as the Southbank parent initiative board. In letters circulated last month by parents, including billionaire hedge-fund manager and philanthropist Chris Cooper-Hohn, it was claimed the company had “no serious interest in maximising the educational experience of… children if it impacts on their bottom line”. They claim that Cognita made £3m in profit from the school in 2010 with “almost 20% operating profits”, had “provided no added value to the school since they became owners” three years ago, and had “cynically underpaid staff” before an intervention from parents last year. A letter circulated by the parent group adds: “The reason for this aggressive milking of the school is to pay interest on debt and maximise profits for a sale of Cognita likely via an IPO in the stock market. They paid £22m for the school, which had no real assets since the school buildings were all leased. In order to pay back this purchase debt, their strategy has been to aggressively raise fees and minimise investment in teachers and facilities.”
Cognita, which educates 15,000 pupils in 50 schools worldwide, denied the allegations, claiming that its profits were in line with others in the sector. It also resisted parents’ demands that the school be sold to a charitable organisation. In a letter to parents, Woodhead claimed that the “hostile campaign… being waged against Cognita is threatening the stability of the school and the ability of our teachers to do what is best”. He wrote: “Cognita is not, as the SPI would have you believe, ‘milking Southbank for profits’. To the best of our knowledge, our profitability is comparable to other private operators in the sector. The figures which have been bandied about by the SPI are wholly inaccurate.”
Woodhead insisted that Cognita would not sell Southbank and criticised Cooper-Hohn’s confrontational manner. He wrote: “He has tried to use his wealth to intimidate and threaten.”
Last night Woodhead said that further meetings with parents had led to some common ground being found, and he repeated his denial that Cognita had “milked” Southbank. He admitted Cognita had shown interest in the free schools project, but said talks to run Toby Young’s school in Hammersmith and two further schools elsewhere in the country had “come to nothing”.
Woodhead insisted that Cognita would be concentrating on its independent schools and that he had not spoken to Gove for over a year.
