Speaking today at the Annual Conference of school leaders’ union
NAHT, Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, will criticise the
government for an ‘absolute failure of political leadership’
leading to a breakdown in trust for young people and education
professionals.
“School leadership is hard at the moment. It’s not simply the
continuing Covid pressures, the continuing lack of funding, the
high-stakes accountability, the quality of inspection, the
recruitment and retention crisis, the long hours, or the lack of
pay… It is also the absolute failure of political leadership.
“The failure of an out of touch government is making the job of
producing well rounded young adults ready to play a full role in
society so difficult.
“The basics taught in school are not how to write and how to
count. The first things are self-regulation, good behaviour,
decency, honesty, and integrity. Things that are hard to observe
in the UK government right now.
“I am not that angry that we all obeyed the rules at the most
desperate of times while our leaders partied. In the grand scheme
of things, the offence of having a glass of wine and a slice of
cake is minor. But for the prime minister of the county to
mislead us about it, repeatedly, is unforgiveable, and clearly in
breach of the standards of our democratic institutions.
“If we cannot trust our leaders to tell the truth about cake, how
can we trust that we will be told the truth about war? How can we
trust that we will be told the truth about refugees, how can we
trust that we will be told the truth about the economy, the
progress of the pandemic… or the government’s ambitions for
education.
“It matters because young people can see this playing out before
their very eyes. And schools’ efforts to make sure young people
understand the basics of self-regulation, good behaviour,
decency, honesty, and integrity becomes so much more difficult
against that backdrop.”
Mr Whiteman also criticised the government’s approach to dealing
with refugees and immigrants, and rejected the government’s
interference in how schools discuss these issues with pupils.
“Like the rest of us young people see on the television every day
the appalling scenes from the Ukraine. And before that the
difficult scenes from Afghanistan and the difficult scenes from
Syria. They see refugees, desperate humans, arriving on our
shores in rubber boats from France. And they also see the
complete lack of compassion, the complete lack of humanity
demonstrated by our government in the way we deal with these
issues.
“Young people are not stupid; they also see and hear the
difficult debates about immigration and are inquisitive. But you
are not allowed to teach young people about this in a balanced
way. The rhetoric from government wants to portray you as trendy
lefties that want to indoctrinate young people. That is utter
tosh! Teachers and school leaders will teach young people about
how to interrogate these issues well and draw their own
conclusions. They have been doing this well for years, and they
will do it in a balanced way; I trust them to do that, government
should trust them to do that.
“I’ve no doubt that, like me, many of you have watched on in
horror at the bloodshed and destruction which continues to bring
devastation to the people of Ukraine. History will define
governments on how they acted during such crises, and this
administration’s hesitance in welcoming those affected by the war
does not reflect the values of compassion, humanity, and
solidarity that I know many of you and your colleagues have shown
when children from war torn countries have joined your school.
"It’s a pity we can’t mandate our country’s leaders to go back to
school, so you can teach them all a thing or two about
leadership.”
