Academies create a vastly unfair system in the local education market. A pupil at an academy will get £21,000 in funding whereas a pupil in a comprehensive school will get only £14,000 in funding. Whilst this extra funding is welcome it should be equally distributed throughout all schools. Clearly the government has deliberately set up a system in which certain institutions are morely to succeed, whereas others are more likely to fail - all to meet political needs of new right thinking in sociological education.

We live in a post-Fordist society. The demands of labour markets and the needs of business has undeniably changed dramatically. From this I welcome new skill centres in which pupils are being taught the skills they and indeed we need. At a time of over-population having a skills shortage is not an acceptable situation. I welcome the skills centre's not because they encourage diversity in education, but because they are needed. It seems to be the governments position to promote diversity for the sake of promotion diversity in education, not because what is being proposed is needed in modern society. Academies are a welcome proposition in that they offer new facilities and investment. However money does not tackle deeply routed problems and selling our schools out to a private sponsor whilst still paying the running costs is frankly an unfair proposition and runs the rist of alienating parents and allowing dangerous ethos's to run free in schools.

I am 19 years old and have spent my last secondary academic year in a city academy (The Kings Academy, Middlesbrough), which replaced my old school (Coulby Newham School). While I am a self confessed geek whose into this stuff anyways, I think, even if you've strolled onto this page by accident, you should just give its contents a look. Any comments would be appreciated and if you feel the need to criticise etc E-mail me - MR_Vulcanuk@hotmail.com

Enjoy!