If we sell school places overseas, full-blown privatisation won't be far off | Fiona Millar

Students at the West London Free School. 'What would happen to the local children who would then get displaced, especially those from the most deprived backgrounds who Michael Gove claims his pet free schools are intended to benefit?' Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA Wire/Press Association Images

On first sight, Thursday's leaked No 10 memo suggesting that places at free schools and academies might be sold to overseas pupils almost looked liked a spoof story. But anyone familiar with the world of Gove/Cameron education policy could immediately see that this bizarrely named "education exports industrial strategy" is probably a deadly serious plan being fermented for a future Tory government.

Initial responses rightly focused on how these pupils would be admitted to academies and free schools. Forget the old-fashioned notion of distance criteria – some sort of mega-selection would be inevitable with a global catchment area. And what would happen to the local children who would then get displaced, especially those from the most deprived backgrounds who Michael Gove claims his pet free schools are intended to benefit?

It would be a reckless plan, even at a time of sufficient school places. But at the moment we have parents all over the country who are unable to get any place for their child. Quite how they would feel seeing places in a much sought-after local school being "exported" abroad is anyone's guess.

But the real story here is surely that full-blown privatisation, the evaporation of state responsibility – and from the Tory point of view state funding – for the delivery of public education, is being seriously contemplated in No 10. Other milestones are already in place: performance-related pay for teachers is on its way. Around half the country's secondaries are now academies, reluctant primaries are being forced down the same route and the 2011 Education Act decreed that if a new school is needed, it can only be a free school or an academy.

Once schools are out of the maintained sector, only governed by a commercial contract with the secretary of state (the basis on which "independent" state schools are set up), it is only a short step to a new procurement process, which allows multinational for-profit chains to enter this market. And the point about schools run for profit is that they do what they say on the tin – seek to make a profit. So the first stop may be wealthy foreign pupils seeking access to selective, oversubscribed academies, but where would that stop. Co-payments? Fees for domestic families?

The risks associated with this piece of dogma are high. Profit-making schools have a very mixed record in nearly every country where they have already been tried, notably Sweden, the US and Chile. Quality is often poor. If they fail they are swiftly closed down or reopened under new management – hardly a culture conducive to fostering sustained improvement.

Where they do succeed it is often because they have managed to admit the pupils who are easiest to teach and lose those who are a drag on results. And what better way to enhance your intake than by widening the pool of applicants to include the entire world.

As usual there is a lot of hot air from the Lib Dems, who are briefing that they will resist this plan. Don't believe their phoney outrage. Every single legislative change since 2010 has further enabled what the leaked memo describes as the "domestic market for education businesses" – formerly known as the English school system – and the Liberal Democrats have supported every one of those changes.

Labour has at least come out against for-profit schools. State education isn't just about nurturing and developing young people; it is also about inclusion, social cohesion and community. Profit, fees and international students jumping the queue to bolster the profits of global corporate interests have no place in this world.

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Lib Dems reject David Cameron's plan to lure overseas pupils to UK

David Cameron wrote to universities minister David Willetts last week with details of his proposed polices. Photograph: Rex Features

A radical proposal by David Cameron to offer places at academies and free schools to overseas pupils as part of a "new education export strategy" to repair damage done by the government's student visa restrictions will be fiercely resisted by Liberal Democrats, narrowing its chances of becoming official policy.

A Lib Dem source said they would try to quash several of the policies floated by the prime minister in a letter to universities and science minister David Willetts dated 1 July.

In particular, the Lib Dems said they would fight any attempt to sell state school places at a time when rapid population growth is triggering a national shortage of primary and secondary school places.

The letter from Cameron – first published by the Times – pushes for policies to "pitch our offer to international students more persuasively" and market the UK as a destination for fee-paying overseas students after a sharp fall in applications to the higher and further education sectors.

After telling Willetts to work with the Department for Education (DfE) in "increasing the place of schools" in the export strategy, Cameron's letter continues: "This is meant to be a long-term strategy and while the academies/free schools programme should focus on consolidating domestic progress over the next couple of years, we should look at export potential too.

" This should include consideration of allowing international students to access places at academies."

That would set state schools in competition with the independent sector – which derives an increasing share of its income from overseas pupils – just as the DfE is fostering co-operation between the two.

It could also anger parents after the National Audit Office forecast a need for 250,000 extra primary school places by 2014. Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, said the letter raised the prospect of overseas pupils bypassing admissions procedures faced by local families at popular schools.

"Parents will have serious questions for the prime minister about opening up schools to overseas pupils. With a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of places he should make sure that schools provide enough places for our own children," Twigg said.

Neither the DfE nor No 10 would comment.

The proposals also include making it easier for postgraduates to get UK citizenship after completing their studies, and an attempt to promote the advanced courses offered by Britain's elite military academies.

"Options could include, for example, giving PhD students in [science, technology, engineering and maths] subjects only a three-year wait before they can apply for citizenship rather than the normal five years," Willetts was told.

Willetts was also advised to exploit the advanced military skills taught by the UK armed forces. "The Defence Academy is a great institution and we should think how to maximise the offer from it," the letter said.

Some Defence Academy courses are open to civilians. One example is the fulltime MSc in explosives ordnance engineering, costing up to ￡25,000. It includes an optional module named "Explosives for nuclear weapons".

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