THE FUTURE of education? Nothing but blue skies… and
schools without teachers! Opponents of the government’s "Workforce
Agreement" have always warned that its real purpose was to introduce
teaching on the cheap.
Martin Powell-Davies
Along with the introduction of new staffing regulations
that allow anybody to teach, no matter what qualifications, we warned that the
"deal" was designed to pave the way to teaching jobs being taken over
by cheaper, less qualified staff.
If anyone thought this was exaggeration then they need to
read the "blue skies" report leaked to the Times Educational
Supplement last month.
This strategy paper, apparently written by a senior civil
servant in the education department (DfES), goes further than even we imagined!
The paper sets out a vision of workforce ‘reform’ where
schools: "Should seek to exploit… the new legal freedoms we have given
schools".
It spells out clearly that this can now mean using support
staff to "teach" as long as they "operate under a system of
supervision by a teacher – but that teacher might of course be the head".
So the future could be schools where the only qualified teacher is the head!
New Labour minister, David Milliband, has tried to distance
himself from the paper, saying it was not government policy. But, whether
officially sanctioned by ministers or not, the DfES official has simply spelt
out the logical conclusion of government policy.
The paper admits that: "Spending review 2004 will be
very tight, with new reforms largely needing to be funded from reworking
existing budgets".
In other words, even this year, let alone in future,
schools won’t have the money they need to genuinely reduce teacher workload or
improve support staff pay. Instead, any changes will have to be paid for by
employing cheaper unqualified staff instead of qualified teachers.
It seems the DfES have given up on ever having the
resources needed for schools to genuinely reduce the workload and improve the
pay and conditions of teachers so that enough graduates will want to work, and
remain, in our classrooms.
The official instead argues for changes: "That will
take us into essential but presentationally uncomfortable areas, like the case
for reducing overall teacher numbers to pay for a better adult/pupil
ratio".
The paper is one more argument for the trade unions
presently signed up to "workforce reform" to withdraw from the
agreement.
If the ‘deal’ isn’t going to have funding to employ more
staff, if it is really about replacing teachers with non-qualified staff – as
the NUT have always warned – then it is a deal that must be ditched.
