The government has set out minimum levels of service in schools during strikes by teachers after a year in which 25 million days were lost by industrial action.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “Keeping children in school is my number one priority. Last year’s school strikes were some of the most disruptive on record for children and parents, with 25 million cumulative days lost, alongside the strike action that badly affected students in colleges and universities.”
“We cannot afford a repeat of that disruption, particularly as young people continue to catch up from the pandemic.”
The government said they hoped to have the new minimum levels in place for September 2024, and they said it was particularly important for special needs children, the offspring of key workers, and those taking exams.
But teaching unions reacted angrily to the government’s plans, claiming it was restricting their members’ democratic right to take industrial action.
Government ‘Demonstrating its Contempt for Teachers’
“The government is once again demonstrating its contempt for teachers, at a time when they should be listening to the concerns of the profession and facing up to the crisis in recruitment and retention they have created,” he added.The Department for Education said it held “constructive” talks with unions in a bid to get a voluntary deal on minimum levels of service, but had been unable to reach an agreement.
In a statement, the DfE said, “The government has therefore taken the step to open the nine-week consultation to hear the views of parents, young people and the education sector on how best to ensure minimum service levels in schools, colleges, as well higher education institutions.”
In the consultation, the government says: “The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 aims to limit the impacts of strike action on the lives and livelihoods of the public. It aims to ensure a balance between the ability of unions and their members to strike and the rights of the wider public to be able to access key services.”
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The attempt to impose further restrictions on our democratic freedoms is shameful. This government wants to be tough on strikes, but not on the causes of strikes.”
“We have an education system on its knees. A deep recruitment and retention crisis, rocketing workloads and falling pay, and thanks to underfunding we have the largest primary class sizes in Europe and secondary class sizes are the highest since records began more than 40 years ago,” he added.
‘Draconian Legislation’
“Rishi Sunak always intended to implement this draconian legislation without consent or mandate,” he added.The general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, Paul Whiteman said, “It could not be clearer that the government entered into talks with the profession about minimum services levels in incredibly bad faith.”
“Having set initial proposals that no union could agree to, they have collapsed negotiations by briefing the media first and without ever coming back to the table. They have shown they cannot be trusted,” he added.
Mr. Whiteman said: “We now have proof that the government have never been serious about getting the buy-in of the profession. This has always been a hostile act and an attack on the basic democratic freedoms of school leaders and teachers that they are determined to force through.”
“But passing a law which effectively removes the right to strike from groups of employees is obviously done in order to weaken unions and the voice of employees over their pay and conditions,” he added.
