Readers of Mumsnet have savaged education secretary Michael Gove's plea for parents to act as strikebreakers.
Readers of Mumsnet – the “internet behemoth” that attracts more than one million unique viewers per month and courted by leading advisers of Conservatives and Labour – have savaged education secretary Michael Gove’s plea for parents to act as strikebreakers on Thursday during planned industrial action by teaching unions NUT and ATL.
The vast majority of comments on one of the threads, entitled “Parents becoming teachers? Is it me or has Gove totally lost it?”, slammed the minister.
They included:
“How do you feel about going into school to cover for a teacher who is on strike? Is there anyone out there who believes that this is a sound idea…. I think it’s madness!!
“What happened to schools not being allowed to let anyone over the school threasehold without a CRB!!! Oh I guess governments can just change the rules to suit themselves.
“Supervision of unqualified staff in classroom? Expertise and qualifications? Experience of supervising, if not actually teaching, 30 children at once? CRB checks? Health and safety, and safeguarding children issues? Do these things not matter any more?”
And the damning:
“Nothing [about] that man says surprises me anymore :(“
Yesterday’s Independent on Sunday reported that in a letter to local authorities, the Education Secretary:
“…asked heads to consider ‘the full range of local resources available to you from within your school staff and the wider school community to ensure that wherever possible your school remains open’.
“Asked whether ‘wider school community’ meant getting parents to teach lessons, a spokesman for the minister said yesterday: ‘It is up to schools how they want to keep themselves open. If they do that kind of thing, we think that is great.'”
83 Responses to “Gove’s call for parents to act as strikebreakers savaged by Mumsnet”
Ed's Talking Balls
Teaching is comparatively well-paid, with incomparable leave allowance and good job security. Further, while hours clearly aren’t the 9 to 3 some would have us believe, I don’t think teaching can accurately be described as ‘a long-hour high-stress job’ (although, granted, that certainly depends on what level you teach at, and crucially at which school).
As for university teaching, qualification requirements must depend on where you teach, surely. Most lecturers I came across had at least one degree, for a start.
Eleanor
“…the sort of Mums who have time to fritter on Mumsnet” – are they like the sort of Selohesras who have time to fritter on Left Foot Forward? 😉
Richard
Nice one C-pony, slam-dunked Selohesra.
Ed's Talking Balls
An important P.S.
Sorry if that comment above comes across as an attack on teachers. It really wasn’t meant to be; it’s a job I couldn’t do and many of the teachers I came across were excellent. I was only pointing out that they aren’t a special case, in that a great many professions are operating in straitened circumstances.
On the strikes, I don’t think it will achieve anything other than considerable, albeit brief, disruption. I sincerely hope that all sides continue negotiation and actually mean them. Hostility on either side would be counterproductive: the unions can’t win, in my view, but government shouldn’t abuse a dominant position and bully people for the sake of it. I would hope that no-one (the odious cretin Bob Crow excepted) actually wants strikes.
leila Galloway
I am taking my children to a picket line & i am teaching them that it is important to defend rights! What life will my children have when I will have hardly have any money to support myself in my old age! Never mind the pressure that they will have to pay for their university education! Gove obviously does not value teachers or education as a human right!