Members of the NUT (National Union of Teachers) are holding the first national strike since 2014 on 5 July. The length of time since the most recent national action refutes any suggestion that the NUT, or indeed its members, are in any way militant; particularly against a backdrop of worsening conditions for teachers and students. But it also shows how members feel there is no recourse with the government bullishly refusing to address the mess they have created in education.
I’ve previously written about the current crisis in teaching and the challenges facing education as a whole are well documented on this site. As are the reasons for strike action as a last resort when union members feel the only tool they have to initiate or resume meaningful negotiations with their employer is the withdrawal of their labour. Therefore I shan’t discuss the aforementioned at any length. Although, I will reiterate that not only is teaching and education at a critical point, but that strike action is necessary as a last resort with a government that is void of empathy for teachers and students and nonchalant towards their destruction of the education system.
Ignorance and disdain for teachers from the government and sections of the media will no doubt encourage the public to think that the strike is about teachers selfishly complaining. However, what the teachers’ strike is really about is the students and their education. Just as students are at the crux of all teachers do, the improvements that teachers seek are for their current and future students and the protection of an education system that no one else seems to be protecting. Understanding that students and their education is what the strike is about, is incredibly important but a fact that is lost on so many as they instead look to lambaste and demonise teachers.
Amidst the cornucopia of problems within the profession, the teachers’ strike is centred on three main arguments of school funding, the protection of teachers’ terms and conditions in all institutions and a commitment to meaningful talks in pursuit of resolving concerns with teachers’ contracts.
While the Chancellor claims to be protecting funding for schools, in real terms, he’s frozen the funding for education while taking an increased amount of money from schools through the national insurance and pension contributions he exacts. Consequently, for every 20 teachers employed, a school has to find an extra teacher’s salary to give to the Treasury. The impact of finding those savings directly hits students and is already visible in the cuts that schools are making.
Schools around the country are being forced to adopt further austerity to ridiculous levels where many teachers will lament basic resources not being available, increased class sizes and the abolishment of specialist and pastoral posts of staff who provide immense and invaluable support to students. Meanwhile, some schools, and notably multi-academy trusts, are finding cash for bloated senior leadership teams or frivolous expenses that make a mockery of the education system and fail to benefit students. It’s all the more reason that school funding needs to be addressed along with a wider dialogue on ensuring that students are at the centre of spending.
Protection of teachers’ terms and conditions in all institutions, including academies, and talks on teachers’ contracts may seem selfish. But teachers cannot be effective without either. Running teachers into the ground with excessive workload isn’t going to help them to help students yet critics of teachers claim it’s merely a case of the progression throwing its toys out the pram. Oddly, it’s often a criticism from those who don’t work anywhere near a 12 hour day, with the stresses that accompany teaching, only to go home and work further hours. Teachers need terms and conditions and contracts that permit them being effective to their students even if no one else. Nevertheless, the status quo has put an unbearable and bureaucratic strain on this happening.
The NUT’s goal of protecting conditions being directed primarily at academies may seem unnecessary given the government decided to drop its plans for forced academisation of all English schools by 2020. But the Tories' ideological obsession with academies nonetheless continues and forthcoming education legislation will include powers for the DfE (Department of Education to force schools in 'underperforming' local authorities to be converted to academies. And with it, the spectre of academisation remains over many schools.
Many schools, afraid of forced academisation, become data-driven institutions that show diminishing regard for students’ emotional, social and even meaningful academic growth and instead focuses on grades and levels that show they aren’t underperforming by the government’s standards. Again, the students take the biggest hit as they become statistics rather than people who should be nurtured within a system that should have them at the forefront of its agenda.
If you support an education system that provides for students while putting them at the heart of all it does, you’re on the same page as the teachers striking. This strike isn’t about teachers, it’s about the students who are suffering from the government’s policies and a damaged education system. The DfE has ironically claimed that the NUT and its members are causing unnecessary disruption by “playing politics with children's futures” and sections of the media will no doubt follow with similar rhetoric. Though what many onlookers may not realise is that they’re actually in agreement with the aims and principles of the strike after all.
I’ve previously written about the current crisis in teaching and the challenges facing education as a whole are well documented on this site. As are the reasons for strike action as a last resort when union members feel the only tool they have to initiate or resume meaningful negotiations with their employer is the withdrawal of their labour. Therefore I shan’t discuss the aforementioned at any length. Although, I will reiterate that not only is teaching and education at a critical point, but that strike action is necessary as a last resort with a government that is void of empathy for teachers and students and nonchalant towards their destruction of the education system.
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Amidst the cornucopia of problems within the profession, the teachers’ strike is centred on three main arguments of school funding, the protection of teachers’ terms and conditions in all institutions and a commitment to meaningful talks in pursuit of resolving concerns with teachers’ contracts.
While the Chancellor claims to be protecting funding for schools, in real terms, he’s frozen the funding for education while taking an increased amount of money from schools through the national insurance and pension contributions he exacts. Consequently, for every 20 teachers employed, a school has to find an extra teacher’s salary to give to the Treasury. The impact of finding those savings directly hits students and is already visible in the cuts that schools are making.
Schools around the country are being forced to adopt further austerity to ridiculous levels where many teachers will lament basic resources not being available, increased class sizes and the abolishment of specialist and pastoral posts of staff who provide immense and invaluable support to students. Meanwhile, some schools, and notably multi-academy trusts, are finding cash for bloated senior leadership teams or frivolous expenses that make a mockery of the education system and fail to benefit students. It’s all the more reason that school funding needs to be addressed along with a wider dialogue on ensuring that students are at the centre of spending.
Protection of teachers’ terms and conditions in all institutions, including academies, and talks on teachers’ contracts may seem selfish. But teachers cannot be effective without either. Running teachers into the ground with excessive workload isn’t going to help them to help students yet critics of teachers claim it’s merely a case of the progression throwing its toys out the pram. Oddly, it’s often a criticism from those who don’t work anywhere near a 12 hour day, with the stresses that accompany teaching, only to go home and work further hours. Teachers need terms and conditions and contracts that permit them being effective to their students even if no one else. Nevertheless, the status quo has put an unbearable and bureaucratic strain on this happening.
The NUT’s goal of protecting conditions being directed primarily at academies may seem unnecessary given the government decided to drop its plans for forced academisation of all English schools by 2020. But the Tories' ideological obsession with academies nonetheless continues and forthcoming education legislation will include powers for the DfE (Department of Education to force schools in 'underperforming' local authorities to be converted to academies. And with it, the spectre of academisation remains over many schools.
Many schools, afraid of forced academisation, become data-driven institutions that show diminishing regard for students’ emotional, social and even meaningful academic growth and instead focuses on grades and levels that show they aren’t underperforming by the government’s standards. Again, the students take the biggest hit as they become statistics rather than people who should be nurtured within a system that should have them at the forefront of its agenda.
If you support an education system that provides for students while putting them at the heart of all it does, you’re on the same page as the teachers striking. This strike isn’t about teachers, it’s about the students who are suffering from the government’s policies and a damaged education system. The DfE has ironically claimed that the NUT and its members are causing unnecessary disruption by “playing politics with children's futures” and sections of the media will no doubt follow with similar rhetoric. Though what many onlookers may not realise is that they’re actually in agreement with the aims and principles of the strike after all.
