LONDON, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- The number of children taught in academy or free schools in England has for the first time exceeded the numbers in schools run by town and city councils, figures released Wednesday have revealed.
The Department for Education (DfT) said standards are rising faster in many academies than in similar council-run schools.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds hailed the milestone as a decisive moment and urged more schools to consider the freedom and opportunities offered by becoming an academy.
Until schools were given power to determine their own destinies virtually all schools were controlled and governed by local education authorities.
A spokesperson for the DfT said: "Today's figures reflect school leaders' recognition of the autonomy and freedom to innovate offered by the academies program, alongside the increased ability to make decisions in the interests of staff and pupils.
"This has included measures such as altering the length of the school day or adapting the curriculum to help every child access a school that meets their needs, interests and abilities.
"More than 8,300 schools in the country have become an academy or opened as a free school, with hundreds of schools making the positive choice to convert to become an academy in the last 12 months alone."
The academies program was introduced to improve pupil performance and break the cycle of low expectation.
The 2010 Academies Act gave all schools in England the freedom to choose to become an academy and now over 50 percent of pupils in the state funded education system are taught in an academy or free school.
Alongside schools that have chosen to become an academy, some have been taken out of local authority control through government intervention because of educational underperformance.
Also published on Wednesday is an analysis shows in many cases standards have risen more quickly in under-performing schools that have become academies than in similar council-run schools.
Hinds said: "In the past, schools that failed were allowed to stay under local authority control for far too long. Academies have changed all that. Failing schools can now be taken away from local bureaucracies who have not been able to improve them and given to school leaders who can."
Leora Cruddas, CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: "This is an important moment. School trusts are no longer a small project in a much larger education system."
