Member News
1st February 2010ePolitix.com discusses the Voice election manifesto with Philip Parkin, general secretary of Voice: the union for education professionals.
Could you tell us about the recently-published Voice election manifesto? What is its purpose?
Voice wants to participate in the education debate that is taking place in the run-up to the general election. We want to have our say and set out for our members, the general public and politicians exactly what we see as priorities at the moment.
Our manifesto could have been much longer, but the points that we have laid out are what Voice believes needs to be changed. These are the issues that we would like our members to be questioning politicians about when they attend hustings in the run-up to the forthcoming election.
What specific pledges are you seeking from the various political parties?
Voice is not seeking any specific pledges from any political parties. Generally speaking, election pledges do not stand up after they have been made. The manifesto is not about seeking pledges; it is about raising awareness of the issues and saying that these are the things that we are particularly concerned about.
In the manifesto you focus very strongly on pay and conditions. What particular points would you like to see addressed?
We address pay and conditions in a number of areas. One is a national pay and conditions system for support staff in schools, which, hopefully, is on its way because the support staff negotiating body is due to report on this later in the year. We hope whichever party is in government later in the year will accept the recommendations and implement them.
We would also like to see a similar system for pay and conditions for staff in further education. The payment that they receive varies from college to college right across the country. It is certainly appropriate that people should be paid according to the quality of the work that they do and local variations should be on the basis of a national system. Voice believes that the lack of such a system is a great anomaly and the fact that teachers who work in Academies are not subject to national pay and conditions, unlike teachers in the maintained sector, is also an issue that urgently needs to be resolved.
Voice has declared that it would like Key Stage 2 tests to be scrapped. Why is this?
It is because of the skewing of the system that this kind of testing causes. Key Stage 2 tests divert from the broad and balanced curriculum that children are expected to receive in their schooling. These tests focus too intensively on maths and literacy, which can be taught in a variety of alternative ways and through different subjects. The force-feeding and distortion of knowledge that Key Stage 2 tests cause are not needed.
What does the election manifesto state on the 'licence to teach'?
The 'licence to practise' is another layer of accountability - it is excessive and it is not necessary. It is another stick to beat teachers with and will discourage rather than encourage them. The tools for accountability of the individual teacher are already in place. We already have performance management and if that is operating correctly in schools, we don't need another form, another way of assessing teachers.
There is definitely a need for an entitlement to Continuing Professional Development, but it doesn't have to be attached to a 'licence to practise'. This scheme just creates another level of bureaucracy, despite what the Department for Children, Schools and Families says. It will add to the workload for teachers and it will add to the workload for head teachers, which is already excessive.
Voice is also eager to see the creation of a dedicated government department for education, from nursery to tertiary, in England. Why is this? Do you consider this achievable?
Yes, it is achievable because it only takes government will. You only have to look at how often governments, of all political persuasions, reorganise their departments and pull together different strands of government.
It seems to me that we have lost the continuity of education. Different sections of education are dealt with by different departments, for example, further and higher education is the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
We need to have a clear and coherent idea of what we want to obtain from education. Children's services are now part of the educational remit and, whilst there is merit in that, it seems to have distracted from the focus on education and where the teaching of young children right through to university students is taking us.
Voice would like to see the focus brought back on to education as a free-standing department in the next government. This is especially important for the 14 to 19 age group, responsibility for which is currently divided between the DCSF (for school students) and BIS (for college students). This is clearly a nonsense and having one unified department would provide the more streamlined approach that is needed in this area.
What other key messages would Voice wish to get across to parliamentarians ahead of the general election?
Voice wants to emphasise that change should be strategic, planned and manageable. There has been too much change in too short a time and with too little thought being put into policy changes. We do not need initiatives introduced for political gain; we need initiatives introduced for real benefit.
We need changes that have time to bed in before the next change comes along. The speed of progress has been horrendous in English education and schools have suffered from it.
We need more trust for the professionals. We need to reduce the micro-management of schools from Whitehall, and we need to stop blaming schools for all the ills of society whilst expecting them to compensate for the deficiencies of others.
The full version of Voice's election manifesto.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd
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