CAMPAIGNERS are calling on Schools Secretary Ed Balls to stop a company linked with the manufacture of nuclear weapons from running a partnership of schools in his Yorkshire constituency.
Jacobs Engineering Group is set to become one of the members of the Education Ossett trust which will see the majority of schools in the town join forces to opt out of council control and take a greater say in how they are run.
Ossett School and S
ixth Form College and eight of its feeder schools are consulting on plans to become trust schools for the next academic year.
However the involvement of Jacobs, a civil engineering firm with an operation based in Leeds, has angered campaigners who object to the company's links to a company which manufactures nuclear weapons.
Jacobs is a strategic partner of Atomic Weapons Establishment which runs a weapons site in Aldermaston, in Berkshire, for the Ministry of Defence.
Sally Kincaid, Wakefield branch secretary of the NUT said: "Some people will object to nuclear weapons on principle and what message does it send to children when we tell them not to bring knives into school but then tell them it is acceptable for a company which makes nuclear weapons to be running our schools?"
The Wakefield-based organisation Campaigners Against Trust Schools are writing to schools secretary Mr Balls calling on him to intervene to prevent Jacobs being involved in the running of schools in his Normanton constituency.
Mr Balls said parents raising concerns was an important part of the consultation process but added: "It is up to the governors of the schools to decide which companies will be part of the trust and it is they who decide whether or not a company is a suitable trust partner."
He told the Yorkshire Post the Education Ossett trust could raise standards and create new opportunities for pupils.
Ossett School's headteacher Martin Shevill said: "Every major engineering firm in the country at some point in the past, present or future will be linked to a contact for the Ministry of Defence. The only company that we will be dealing with is a civil engineering firm with an office in Leeds. It will give real high quality work experience opportunities for some of our sixth-formers."
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