The second item today that I have reblogged on Gove and the crisis in UK state education. This is a well-argued look at how the escalating industrial action amongst teachers is about so much more than pay. Having been in several teaching unions I know that traditionally the greatest ire is reserved for the other teaching unions. Uniquely, in my experience, we have a government who have unified teachers in a common cause – that of saving universal state education for UK children by trained practitioners!
It really is about ‘standing up for standards’ – and much, much more.
On June 27th the two largest teachers’ unions, the NUT and NASUWT, will commence a campaign of strike action opposing government policy on pay, pensions and workload. It represents a significant escalation of a campaign of ‘action short of strike action’ that has already been in place for some time. The campaign is focused in particular on the proposals presented by the School Teachers’ Review Body that effectively abolish any national framework for teachers’ pay whilst simultaneously embedding performance-related pay even more deeply into the system.
A high-risk strategy . . . ?
Stepping up the campaign against the pay proposals represents a high-risk strategy by the teacher unions. This is largely because this is a fight that Michael Gove has prepared for, and is ready for. Indeed, I would go further and argue (and have argued previously) that it is a fight that Michael Gove has…
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