THE FUTURE of our education system looks uncertain as we head into the new year and learn of more schools choosing to become an academy.

At the moment, most county schools have yet to adopt the status, meaning they will rely on county council funding and be under its control for some time yet.

But as our report today highlights, there will come a time in the not too distant future where there will come a tipping point.

As more schools grab an extra pot of cash and take up the chance to become academies, setting their own pay and conditions and becoming free from local authority control, there will be a point when Oxfordshire has a minority of ‘state schools’.

In turn there will be little money from the county council for such ‘state schools’ to be run effectively, to improve and to give our children the quality education system they deserve.

Our headteachers will become CEOs of organisations with multi-million pound budgets, and our best teachers will no doubt be lured by better salaries from academies.

As education expert Prof John Howson from Brookes University points out, those schools that get left behind will get a worse service because there will be less funds.

Let us hope that his prediction of a wholesale meltdown in the primary sector will not come about and that someone does ‘gets a grip’ on the situation as he hopes.

Referring to the old grammar school days, Prof Howson declares: “The time when some children could get an excellent education and some people were left to get a second-class education has got to be left behind. That system was not fit for purpose.”

We think we can all agree that we don’t want to see a return to those days.