NASUWT: Gove's 'elitist agenda'

Wednesday, 24 November 2010 12:00 AM

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, comments on today's white paper on education:

"We are today witnessing a vicious assault by the secretary of state on teachers' commitment and professionalism to deflect attention from the coalition government's policy of savage cuts to education, its elitist agenda and its free market ideology.

"The secretary of state's statements are a disgraceful denigration and misrepresentation of the performance of schools and teachers.

"Teachers will be doing today what they do everyday, working hard to ensure that all children and young people succeed.

"But all they will hear from the secretary of state is that their qualifications are not good enough; they shouldn't have been in the classroom in the first place; they need to be subject to more monitoring because they can't be trusted and they must be told how to teach because they have been short -changing pupils.

"Children and young people's hard work and achievements, over the last decade, fair no better.

"The NASUWT and teachers are not afraid of change in the education system.

"Any change, however, must meet the tests of raising standards, fairness, equality and social justice, which are at the heart of successful state education.

"This white paper is history repeating itself.

"The last time the Tories were in government they left behind the worst teacher recruitment and retention crisis in history, a totally demoralised profession and thousands of young people abandoned by a government indifferent to their needs.

"We are now witnessing the plans for another lost generation of young people."

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