'Where next for Academy schools?' NASUWT asks Liberal Democrats

21 September 2009

The NASUWT, the largest teachers' union in the UK, will be reiterating its call for academy schools to be covered by the national framework of teachers' pay and conditions and to recognise unions at a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrats Party Conference in Bournemouth.

The meeting, The Future of Academy Schools, will debate where next for the academy schools programme and examine the impact on state education.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said:

"Whilst Ed Balls has made a significant number of changes to the academy programme to bring them back into line with maintained schools, the anomaly of their exclusion from teachers' pay and conditions and automatic union recognition still remains.

"A national pay structure with no opt out underpins and affirms the universal nature of the education service and entitlement of all children and young people. In the last ten years changes have been made to teachers' and headteachers' working conditions, specifically to support them in raising standards. What therefore is the rationale for excluding academies from those provisions.

Jerry Bartlett, deputy general secretary of the NASUWT, who will be addressing the meeting, said:

"The introduction of the academy schools programme may have been well- intentioned but ultimately misguided. There is no evidence that handing over previously public assets to external sponsors has resulted in higher education standards. The picture is mixed. There are excellent academies, excellent foundation schools and excellent community schools. It is not structures that make the difference.

"Academies must be located firmly in the family of maintained schools to protect the ethos and values of state education."

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