The free marketeer . . .

Cousin Rodney, the free marketeer, seems to be holding a strong position in the new regime. And that has imminent implications for schools which are soon to be renamed Learning Centres Ltd.

All school bosses will have to have MBAs or, having looked into these, the old School Cert. Accounting or Sixth Form Certificate in Business Studies will be fine. They’d then have strategic planning meetings and discuss mission statements, corporate identities and customer perceptions. And expense accounts.

Schools will contract to other businesses for Research & Development. Maths students will hang out in shopping malls asking customers whether they prefer spicy chicken burgers or non-spicy ones. In Home Ec. they’ll knock up some new foods to see whether GM-cabbage can be made to taste good and whether grass clippings can be made into chocolate.

PE departments will become Sports Academies and will take on juicy sponsorship deals. The teachers will wear the sponsor’s product – unless of course the sponsor is a lycra company (no really, think about your school’s PE teachers squeezed into lycra). Sports Academies will take on drug trial contracts. European cycling is especially keen on this.

Subjects that don’t contribute to the organisation’s profit will be scrapped. Drama will be fine – as long as they pull the crowds and as long as they maximise the merchandising opportunities. History will be History, Geography will be lost, and Latin will be mort.

Schools will have shops to generate income – selling food (teenagers have insatiable appetites so selling food in a school is like selling cigarettes to a chain smoker). Under the new free market regime marijuana would be legalised and sold in school shops. An assumption of the free market is that the consumer knows best.

Of course all schools will have to have websites and the Heads will have to write blogs which will be RSSed out to whoever’s interested. These can all generate advertising revenue – sometimes as much as eight cents per reader.

Successful schools will attract lots of customers (the students’ parents) and many customers will make income go up and due to economies of scale their profits will also increase. They’ll pay dividends to their shareholders and their shares will increase in value. The schools that fail will look like American car manufacturers – begging for government handouts to stave off the inevitable shutdown. The successful schools will open branches all round the country – or maybe they’ll set up franchise agreements.

You see, out on the right wing, schools are not charities. Children should learn the basics – income comes from work, spending must be less than income, and the boss is always right.

— Peter Giddens