Commenting on a speech delivered this morning setting out a ‘new
era' on school standards, Daniel Kebede, general
secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"There is an elephant in the room here.
"The Secretary of State is talking today about urging the
education system to achieve more. At the same time, this
Government is gearing up to make cuts to education, and to the
other services which students need to remove barriers to their
learning.
"Sir will be the first Labour Prime
Minister since James Callaghan to tell schools to make cuts. He
fudges this by calling them ‘efficiencies', but they amount to
reducing what schools require to meet their students' needs
properly.
"The Prime Minister's recommendation to the pay review body is an
unfunded pay award that will also cut into already tight school
budgets. It will undermine the pledge to attract more teachers
and to retain the experience which our schools need, to be
successful for every learner.
"Pigs don't get fatter as a result of weighing them more often.
It's not inspection that delivers excellence - it's well
supported, experienced leaders and education professionals - and
it is investment. It's a motivated, well valued workforce with
great CPD.
"Using negative, pejorative terms like ‘stuck schools' is
unhelpful and counter-productive. Collaboration and not ranking
is what builds a good local school for every child.
"Quite simply you cannot have an improving school system whilst
you are implementing austerity."
