Voice concerned by uncertainty over education policy

17 November 2009

Commenting ahead of the Queen's Speech on 18 November 2009, Philip Parkin, general secretary of Voice: the union for education professionals, has expressed his concerns about the uncertainty that will surround the future direction of education policy before the next General Election.

Philip Parkin said: "The government will be setting out its proposed programme of legislation but, with the election due in the first half of next year, it seems likely that some of the bills will not make it through Parliament in time.

"Those who work in education will therefore be subject to uncertainty about whether some of the proposed measures will impact on their working lives or, depending on the result of the election, never see the light of day.

"The proposed end of National Strategies should allow flexible, local solutions to meet the needs of individual pupils and enable teachers to use their own professional judgment and training. The strategies have always been recommended, not compulsory, and their removal should give more schools the confidence to use strategies that work for them.

"Rights', such as catch-up tuition and one-to-one tuition, depend on the recruitment of sufficient tutors. Schools cannot deliver these 'rights' or be held accountable if there aren't enough tutors. We don't want to see such 'guarantees' result in litigation – a dream for lawyers but a bureaucratic nightmare for head teachers. Heads already have heavy workloads.

"There are also questions to be answered about how and where one-to-one tuition would be delivered and about the implementation of safeguards to protect both children and tutors from actual harm or false allegations.

"I am appalled that the proposed ‘school report cards' will give an overall ‘grade'. Like any institution or organisation, a school has strengths and weaknesses across the many aspects of its work. Schools are already the most over-inspected, over-accountable, minutely examined institutions in the country so a 'B plus, could do better' style of mark would be shallow, pointless and meaningless.

"Voice has considerable reservations about how any 'licence to teach' would operate and how it would impact on the role of the General Teaching Council.

"The proposed CPD entitlement must be readily available and accessible across the country if teachers are to be judged on this.

"The licence must be a measure of quality, as part of the promised entitlement, and raise the professional status of teachers, rather than be a bureaucratic burden.

"In addition to CPD entitlement for teachers, I would like to see a corresponding entitlement for support staff."

---

Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.