Head teachers
have reacted angrily to Education Secretary Michael Gove’s suggestion that they
have a ‘moral duty’ to keep schools open during next week’s strike action. Head
teacher unions branded Gove’s intervention yesterday as ‘patronising’ and ‘unhelpful’.
Members of the Association of Teachers & Lecturers and the National Union of Teachers unions plan to strike on June 30 over proposed changes to public sector pensions. Ahead of the action, Gove wrote to heads in England asking them to take ‘effective steps’ to keep schools open.
He said: ‘My view is that we all have a strong moral duty to pupils and parents to keep schools open, and the government wants to help you achieve that.’
Responding to the letter, Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said ‘the implications of the letter felt more than a little patronising to many’.
He added: ‘School leaders are continuing to act in a calm and measured way to the planned industrial action by our fellow teaching unions next week. Each school leader will conduct a risk assessment based on the circumstances at their school and decide whether it will be a safe environment for pupils to attend should large numbers of staff be on strike. At all times pupils’ welfare will be paramount in their thoughts as it always is.’
The Association of School and College Leaders said that heads ‘are fully aware of their moral duty to pupils and their parents and of their responsibilities regarding decisions about the operation of their schools’.
General secretary Brian Lightman said: ‘This problem is, however, not of [head teachers’] making.
‘ASCL has already written to the prime minister about the damaging effects of this dispute and has not yet received a reply. The solution is for the government to avert this dispute by seeking an urgent resolution to the current impasse rather than sending unnecessary and unhelpful exhortations.’
