Commenting on the Minister for Schools’ decision to stand down,
Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
"Since 2010, has been a near constant presence
throughout a period in which the education system in England has
been battered from pillar to post. Teacher recruitment and
retention are now at breaking point. School buildings are
crumbling. All the problems facing the educational system have
deepened during the period in which Gibb has presided over
schools. Preoccupied with Gibb's own ideology, his department has
been consistent in its neglect of the basic building blocks of a
good educational system - adequate funding,
fully-staffed schools. Under his leadership, the DfE has
asked school leaders to deliver more and more with less and
less.
"Gibb has been a centraliser. He has sought to micro-manage
the teacher education curriculum. He has imposed on schools his
preferred method for the teaching of reading. Through
establishing the Oak National Academy as a government
agency, he has worked towards a degree of control over the
curriculum whose educational consequences will be disastrous. In
the name of 'standards', these policies are actually
reducing the quality of education, worsening the conditions of
teachers and lessening pupils' motivation and enjoyment.
"Ministers talk about school accountability all the time but
rarely appear to feel responsible for the impact of national
policies- such as policies to recruit sufficient teachers. There
is collective responsibility for this failure, and is deeply implicated in the
failure to ensure that the teaching profession cannot attract
sufficient numbers of new teachers, nor retain teachers
within the profession. There needs to be a fundamental change in
the approach and attitude of the Prime Minister towards the
future of education in this country and a far more genuine and
open-minded engagement by the new Schools Minister with the
deep and instructive expertise of school leaders and
education staff.”
