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”
Richard
“I wonder if the union leaders will forfeit a days pay like their members will have to.”
I wonder if the country’s leaders will be willing to forfeit some of their diamond-encrusted platinum-plated pensions.
Selohesra
Quite possibly Eleanor 🙂
Paul Odtaa
The Tories are winning again – let’s attack mumsnet for being too posh. Let’s moan about the teachers being overpaid and having too many holidays. Let’s attack the public service workers for having too good a pension scheme.
Exactly what Cameron and Osborne and the rest of the Eton Bullingdon Blues want- let the lower orders attack each other and we can quietly scrap the state, reward our rich chums with contracts and tax benefits.
Mumsnet supports a great many women many of whom are isolated, poor and need a boost. If the organisation is attacking the coalition then great.
Teachers perform in front of a class from the hours between about 9 and 3. They then do preparation, marking, working their way through the 18 inches or so pile of government directives that are sent each year, training, learning educational software etc etc in their own time.
Public sector pensions have very quietly been reduced from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index meaning the average teacher will receive around £80,000 less pension then they would have done under the old system.
They are expected to pay 50% more in contributions and they will be expected to work extra years to 66, 67, 68. However, few will make it as the cuts mean that experienced, and therefore slightly more expensive teachers will be made redundant or hassled out of their jobs in their mid-50s – having to choose between taking a much reduced pension or surviving the ten years until they get their pension.
And if we look at the more balanced economies, such as Germany, we find that all workers get a good pension scheme, all work less hours and all workers are treated with respect.
So stop playing the Tory game – blame the Blues, Blame Clegg and stop attacking others in this sinking boat.
Must lie down now – somewhere quiet.
Brummie Protestor
RT @leftfootfwd: Gove's call for parents to act as strikebreakers savaged by Mumsnet http://t.co/FX7EKmo #J30 #solidarity
Rowan Davies
Upwards of 75% of posters on Mumsnet work full- or part-time, according to the most recent user survey. (Perhaps not coincidentally, many of them are teachers… ;-))