SOMETHING remarkable is going on when an education speech by the Confederation of British Industry’s director general is praised by most of the education unions.

When even business leaders are saying that the government’s reform programme will not do the things needed to improve education, it shows the breadth of opposition to its education policies.

The sad truth is that the Conservatives have no strategy to improve educational standards.

They fiddle by forcing ordinary state schools to become academies and investing in free schools in areas where there are surplus school places, while the education system in England burns.

Their only solution to drive up standards is to convert all schools into academies, but this is coming under increasing scrutiny from, among others, the public accounts select committee, the education select committee and the Sutton Trust because, clearly, it is not working.

Deprived children, in too many academies, do not make good progress in their learning.

Over the past year we have seen sponsors walking away from the schools they back, and we have seen free schools forced to close because of appalling standards of education and because they could not keep their pupils safe.

The government’s answer to these problems is to look the other way and to impose an information blackout.

Its Education and Adoption Bill proposes to deny parents, teachers and school leaders any information about the sponsor which will take over the running of their school.

Meanwhile, the Department for Education refuses to publish its own grading system for academy sponsors on the grounds that it is against the sponsor’s “commercial interest.”

But what about the interests of parents and pupils? What about the expert professional judgement of teachers and school leaders about who should run their school?

So desperate are the Conservatives to get academy sponsors that Education Secretary Nicky Morgan ran a fire-sale of schools in the House of Commons, promoting schools as great business opportunities.

And indeed they are if you want to fleece schools of the funds which should be used for pupils’ education, or if you are prepared to provide spurious services at inflated prices to the school you own.

Conflicts of interest abound, but the government keeps on looking the other way.

I want to ask Morgan how forcing schools to become academies is going to tackle the education crises which are building up on her watch.

How is it going to tackle the teacher recruitment crisis and the exodus of teachers leaving the profession mid-career, burnt out by stress and overwork?

I also want to ask Morgan how she is going to create enough school places for the 900,000 extra pupils there are going to be over the next decade, particularly when she has no powers to require academies to increase the number of pupils they take.

And I want to ask Morgan why she is determined to spend many millions of pounds creating 500 more free schools when, because of her government, all other state schools are facing a 12 per cent real-terms reduction in their funding.

And what are her intentions for Ofsted, the school inspection agency which this year sacked 40 per cent of its inspectors because they did not pass its own quality control test?

No organisation has done more to undermine teachers’ working lives and increase workloads by finding fault rather than helping teachers to improve.

Ofsted has reduced the professionalism of teachers and in­creased their workloads by demanding data and written evidence to prove what schools and teachers are doing.

ATL has a different vision of an inspection system, one that is supportive, looks at key issues within a school, chooses inspectors based on the issues to be inspected and is overseen by a national body to ensure the quality and consistency of inspections so that it helps rather than hinders children’s education.

But now I think the pot is coming to the boil. If the government does not act soon, it will face a perfect storm of teacher shortages, shortages of school places for pupils and schools simply running out of money. And no-one will be able to say that the government has not been warned.

Mary Bousted is general secretary of the Association Of Teachers & Lecturers.