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| Teachers' strike: school's out | Teachers' strike: school's out |
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| There will be frustrated parents making last-minute arrangements on Tuesday after learning that their child's school is one of hundreds that will be closed on Wednesday, either partly or completely, as members of the NUT hold their first national strike in the long-running argument about teachers' pay and conditions and the growing gap between demand and supply. This is not only the first time the union has called out members from across England and Wales, it is the first time that the other big union, NASUWT, is not joining in – although not ruling out future strike action. This is a decisive moment in the prickly relations between the education secretary and the teaching unions. If it is not settled soon, there is a real danger for Michael Gove that he will go into the next election with an unresolved industrial dispute on his hands. | |
| After four years of austerity, top-down policy development and what many teachers feel is a culture that blames them uniquely for failure, the list of grievances is a long one. Issues of pay and pensions may arouse less sympathy from hard-pressed parents than those that have a direct affect on the children's classroom experience. Teacher churn – the arrival followed too often by the departure of teachers at every level, most marked in challenging schools – is causing real anxiety, flagged up by MPs on the education committee two years ago. Mr Gove often points to the success of Teach First as a graduate recruiter, but its fast-track short-term contracts account for only 1,500 new teachers a year – the merest drop, when last year 47,500 teachers left the profession and a third of the places on Schools Direct, the classroom-based teacher training programme, went unfilled. | After four years of austerity, top-down policy development and what many teachers feel is a culture that blames them uniquely for failure, the list of grievances is a long one. Issues of pay and pensions may arouse less sympathy from hard-pressed parents than those that have a direct affect on the children's classroom experience. Teacher churn – the arrival followed too often by the departure of teachers at every level, most marked in challenging schools – is causing real anxiety, flagged up by MPs on the education committee two years ago. Mr Gove often points to the success of Teach First as a graduate recruiter, but its fast-track short-term contracts account for only 1,500 new teachers a year – the merest drop, when last year 47,500 teachers left the profession and a third of the places on Schools Direct, the classroom-based teacher training programme, went unfilled. |
| According to the OECD, England has one of the youngest teacher workforces in the developed world. It is partly because older, more experienced (and more expensive) teachers are being squeezed out, not least because changes to the national curriculum, such as the exclusion of music, make their jobs redundant. But there is more going on than that, for young teachers are leaving so fast that, five years after qualifying, only half of recruits are still teaching. Compare that with more than 90% in Scotland, where, as the Teacher Development Trust points out, there are no league tables, the inspection regime is constructive more than judgmental, and the minatory approach to lesson planning is absent. | According to the OECD, England has one of the youngest teacher workforces in the developed world. It is partly because older, more experienced (and more expensive) teachers are being squeezed out, not least because changes to the national curriculum, such as the exclusion of music, make their jobs redundant. But there is more going on than that, for young teachers are leaving so fast that, five years after qualifying, only half of recruits are still teaching. Compare that with more than 90% in Scotland, where, as the Teacher Development Trust points out, there are no league tables, the inspection regime is constructive more than judgmental, and the minatory approach to lesson planning is absent. |
| Mr Gove is showing a welcome readiness to talk, encouraged perhaps by the veto imposed by the teachers' pay review body last month on his plans for much more flexibility and even longer hours. He is an education radical. He should recognise that his reforms will last longer if he and the teachers who deliver them listen to each other – and co-operate. | Mr Gove is showing a welcome readiness to talk, encouraged perhaps by the veto imposed by the teachers' pay review body last month on his plans for much more flexibility and even longer hours. He is an education radical. He should recognise that his reforms will last longer if he and the teachers who deliver them listen to each other – and co-operate. |
| • This article was amended on Tuesday 25 March 2014. To clarify, this is the first time the NUT has called out members from across England and Wales, not just England. This has been corrected. |