NATIONAL Union of Teachers (NUT) leaders yesterday opposed government plans for unannounced school inspections and taking state schools out of Birmingham City Council’s control into special measures and turning them into academies.
Speaking to News Line as NUT representatives prepared to lobby MPs to Stand Up For Education, NUT General Secretary Christine Blower said: ‘The so-called “Trojan Horse” affair arose from an unsigned and undated letter. It has led to the clearly political use of Ofsted. Schools deemed outstanding two years ago are now in special measures. This is clearly utterly inappropriate.
‘What school communities – parents, teachers and young people – need is schools in a democratic relationship with their local authorities. No Secretary of State could run schools on factory lines. And no Secretary of State should allow his own ideology to intervene directly into classrooms.
‘We’re opposed to instant inspections. They are not about improvement, they are about conveying a message that teachers are not to be trusted. The National Governors Association also opposes snap inspections. Every aspect of government policy has been about condemning local authorities and creating and reinforcing a market in education through academies and free schools.’ She added that this was ‘the neo-liberal agenda for education’.
Blower confirmed: ‘We have an active trade dispute on pay, pensions and conditions. The next date for national strike action, as approved by our National Executive, is July 10. The NUT is for professional unity. We could clearly make more advances for teachers if we were in a single union.’
NUT Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney told News Line: ‘This attack is based on a massive over-reaction which is rooted in Islamaphobia. The NUT is opposed to no-notice inspections because they are fundamentally disrespectful. We are also opposed to taking schools out of local authority control.
In the United States, the privateers used the excuse of Hurricane Katrina to make every school in New Orleans a Charter School. In the UK, the privateers are trying to blame the Birmingham situation where they can have every school in Birmingham as an academy.’