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”
Leon Wolfson
Ed – There are two VL’s on my course, including myself. I have a BSc, personally. The other VL has 25 years experience, but not even GCSE’s. There is no /formal/ requirement for qualifications for teaching at a university. And I think that’s fine, myself – Universities are quite capable of handling their own requirements.
(And it looks like I’ll be teaching on a MSc in the next academic year)
But sorry, teaching most certainly IS high-stress, especially in the exam-driven world of today, especially if you want to do anything except teach students how to pass tests. Marking is also a PITA. It comes with the job, yes, but making teaching both low-paid and slashing their pensions leads rapidly into “those that can’t, teach”.
Bish Bash Bosh
RT @leftfootfwd: Gove's call for parents to act as strikebreakers savaged by Mumsnet http://t.co/FX7EKmo #J30 #solidarity
Ed's Talking Balls
I certainly wouldn’t advocate formal requirements at universities as, like you, I think they’re capable of sorting that out themselves. I would still be surprised if, at the country’s best universities, those teaching didn’t have such qualifications. That certainly was the case in my experience anyway (most didn’t tire of listing their degrees, publications, etc!)
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree, to an extent, on school teachers. I don’t doubt it’s stressful but can’t see it as more stressful than other careers. Neither do I see it as low-paid.
Agree with you on the emphasis on passing tests, however: it stifles creativity.
Martin Deane
Gove's call for parents to act as strikebreakers savaged by Mumsnet: http://bit.ly/lQiOVd writes @DanielElton
Victoria Trow
Teaching IS a long-hour-high-stress job – they start 8am, they endure 6 hrs a day teaching classes of 30+ teenagers, then go home, mark homework, plan next lessons, and are lucky to have all that done by 10pm. They might have two or three evenings in a week when they can have a social life, but by the time July comes around, they NEED their 6 week break. My partner’s a teacher. A job I couldn’t do.