Nicky Morgan is failing in her mission to smooth relations with teachers after succeeding Michael Gove as Education Secretary, a union leader has warned.
“If her mandate had been to keep things calm, I would say she has pretty much failed in that,” Christine Blower, general-secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), told The Independent. “People don’t have confidence in the Secretary of State because they don’t feel there is any more engagement with the profession than there was previously.”
It is the harshest criticism Ms Morgan has faced from teachers’ leaders since she was appointed before last year’s general election.
Ms Blower was speaking on the eve of her union’s annual conference in Brighton, where teachers are once again expected to rail against government reforms. Several policy announcements in the past two weeks have enraged many teachers – particularly a White Paper calling for every school to become an academy by 2022.
The mood of the conference is such that delegates are bound to warn of industrial action against the proposal, particularly if the change of status leads to any changes to teachers’ jobs or working conditions.
As a first step, the NUT will campaign to try to convince the Government to change its mind over “academisation”. “There is no evidence base for forcing primary schools to become academies,” said Ms Blower. “In fact, the reverse is true. Evidence shows that primary schools are likely to improve at a faster rate demonstrably if theyare local-authority schools.”
The union believes it can make a strong case to force the Government to back down on its plans. “We have the Local Government Association on our side, and senior Tories in the shire counties are not happy to hand their schools over,” Ms Blower said. “They believe they are doing a good job.”
Parents’ organisations such as the parent-teacher association lobby are also incensed by another proposal in the White Paper, removing the necessity for school governing bodies to elect parent representatives.
If lobbying fails, the NUT may well resort to industrial action. It has already mounted rallies around the country in conjunction with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. The NUT and ATL are involved in talks which could lead to closer co-operation or even a merger. “We like the title of the White Paper – Educational Excellence Everywhere – but that’s about it,” Ms Blower added.
The second front on which the union plans to challenge the Government is over primary school testing and assessment. The NUT argues that the reforms will see primary schools becoming more and more like “exam factories”, and it will campaign under the slogan “cancel all tests”.
Ms Blower also claims that Ms Morgan has failed to deliver on pledges to cut teachers’ workloads, citing it as one of the main reasons why growing numbers of staff are quitting the profession.
The Department for Education said it was “disappointing” to see the NUT taking a bullish approach against Ms Morgan’s reforms. “We urge [it] to stop scaremongering and to instead concentrate on working with [its] members to raise the status of the teaching profession,” said a spokeswoman.
