Commenting on Nadhim Zahawi’s call for retired teachers to return
to school in order to ease Covid pressures, Kevin
Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union, said:
"Of course we support measures that could help to reduce
education disruption. With this call for retired teachers to come
forward the government is admitting they are assuming there will
be substantial disruption of education in January.
"It is important to say that this disruption is likely to be made
worse because of the government's failure to put in place the
mitigations and safety measures we have been calling for - on
ventilation, air filtration, mask wearing and isolation of very
close contacts.
"We still need those mitigations to be put in place - even to
help with the effort of recruitment of temporary retired staff.
Some of these older colleagues will be concerned about their
chance of contracting Covid and better mitigations will be
necessary to reassure them.
"We are also extremely concerned about the proposal to recruit
these retired staff through teacher supply agencies which rake
off scarce funds from schools to maximise their profits whilst
minimising the pay they offer supply teachers. That is not the
right way to behave in response to a national call to arms.
"Northern Ireland and Scotland have much better systems for
employment of supply staff and these could be stood up quickly in
England if there were sufficient political will. Local
authorities are well placed to scale up or create pools of
supply."
