Big Co-op Conversations #3: Co-operative Trust Schools - Community partnership for stronger public education

Co-op schools are the biggest sector after Church run schools in the UK - outstripping the private academy chains.

UK co-operative education specialist, Mervyn Wilson, discusses how the co-operative model can provide a bulwark to privatisation of the state education sector, safeguarding community assets and providing a mechanism for accountability to key stakeholders - learners, staff, parents/carers and the local community.

The liberalisation of education in the UK is seen by many as a precursor to the full scale privatisation and the direct involvement of for-profit delivery in education. Can Co-operative schools provide a community based and values driven alternative?

"Having schools run as co-operatives, putting co-operative values into practice and using co-operative examples in the curriculum and pedagogy of the school are all building blocks to a much stronger and successful co-operative sector in the future" (Mervyn Wilson, Principal The Co-operative College).

If you are in Sydney on 5 March, join us for 1.5 hours of stimulating discussion and Q&A on the co-operative schools model. Refreshments will be served.

Watch highlights

Co-operative Trust Schools: Mervyn Wilson & Anne Lampe

Find out more about Mervyn Wilson

Mervyn Wilson, CE and Principal of the Co-operative College UK has led work to develop a distinct co-operative element in the state education sector in England. Today there are over 200 co-operative trust schools and converter academies and the national network, the Schools Co-operative Society, is becoming the voice of the new sector and a co-operative service provider to its member schools. Mervyn is a mentor on a UK Government Pathfinder program for new mutuals in the public sector, working to develop a co-op model for the Further Education sector.

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