Barclays Bank has surprised no-one by throwing its weight behind Michael Gove’s pet ‘free schools’ project. It announced that it would make more than a million pounds available as grants to people wanting to set up their own school.

Barclays has said the money won’t have to be paid back. But since nothing is ever free, it’s no surprise to see that part of this deal includes offering 3,000 students ‘work experience’ in its branches. The ongoing scandal over supermarkets using unpaid workers at their stores, means we should be more than a little suspicious of this philanthropy.

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclays, said the bank was “beginning to address a real problem in society” of lack of opportunity. Well, comprehensive state education didn’t wreck the economy and giving banks a foot in the door isn’t going to fix it.

Jenkins insisted the bank was ‘not a political organisation’. Maybe so, but granting banks and businesses the right to brand our schools and minds with their pro-market, pro-employer propaganda is a fast-track to a two-tier education in the UK. And that is a political decision.

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT said:

“Schools in deprived areas whose pupils do not fit the right socioeconomic profile will not get the help, financial or otherwise, from business. Any successful business’s involvement in a school will surely be decided on what returns they can reap for themselves.”

Fine words, but the teaching unions have refused to wage a national struggle against academisation, despite the heroic efforts of teachers at individual schools.

Even now, as 45% of secondary schools are turned into academies we see how these market forces play out in reality. Businesses are being allowed to cherry-pick the best investments – i.e. high-performing schools with impressive league table results.

Such policies have nothing to do with an altruistic interest in promoting equal opportunities, and everything to do with the same profit-motivated self-interest that saw the financial industry lead us to economic catastrophe.

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