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Press Release

Labour urged to speak up for state education

28 September 2011

The NASUWT has urged the Labour party to commit to the fight to protect state education.

The party must do more to raise public awareness of the threat being posed to a free and publically accountable education system by the Coalition Government's academisation programme, the Union has told Shadow Education Minister Andy Burnham.

Speaking at a fringe meeting on academy schools at the Labour Party Conference, Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary, highlighted the massive public outcry over the threat to the NHS in the Government's Health Bill. She called on Mr Burnham to lead his party in a similar awareness raising campaign on the Education Bill, which contains many of the same threats to public ownership and access to public services.

“Labour must be bold and state that like the NHS, state education is not a discretionary commodity. We need to make the point that there is a big difference between a state funded school and a state owned school. Labour must show this Government that education must be for the many, not for the few.”

Ms Keates compared and contrasted the 'legacy of success' in the school system which the Coalition inherited from the Labour Government, with the decimation and destruction which has taken place under the current administration. Their tenure has been characterised by the drive to privatise state schooling and encourage private profiteering from education.

This is leading to the reintroduction of pupil selection, the undermining of teachers' pay and conditions and is an attack on democracy, Ms Keates said, despite the fact that it has been proven that structural change does not improve standards.

“The highest performing schools in the country are community schools which have a direct link to the local authority. We have a secretary of state who is giving away 150 years of proud history of state education and we have to make a stand against that.”

Mr Burnham similarly decried Michael Gove's 'obsession with structural reform', saying that he was committed to defending state education:

“We are constantly told that comprehensive schools are places of despair where young people are aimlessly drifting and teachers have no discipline. I don't recognise that place. We need to speak up loudly and proudly for the comprehensive school system.”



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