NASUWT: This is more to do with ego than education
Commenting on the list of headteachers and governors published today who, apparently, are signed up to the Conservative Party’s ‘free’ schools policy, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, said:
“There are approximately 23,000 schools. Thirty-one hardly represents a ground swell of opinion, even if you record one school twice, as the list does. What happened to the other 22,970?
“Most of the handful of schools on the list belong to a small, unrepresentative lobby group of grammar and voluntary aided schools which already have significant autonomy.
“These are not schools ‘tied’ to local authorities. These are schools controlled by boards of governors or diocesan authorities.
“Clearly, these are headteachers who want unfettered freedom to do as they please. They want the sort of freedom the banks enjoyed which brought the system to its knees. This is more to do with ego than education.
“As a recent Ipsos MORI poll demonstrated, the overwhelming majority of the public want neither more autonomy for headteachers nor the Tory ‘free’ school policy.”
-ENDS-
Notes to editors
Copies of the Ipsos MORI poll ‘Who should run our schools?’ available on request from the NASUWT press team.
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