Gove braces for teacher walkout

Sunday, 26 June 2011 10:15 AM

By Alex Stevenson Follow @alex__stevenson

Michael Gove continues to hope negotiations will make progress with teaching unions set to strike this Thursday.

The education secretary underlined his commitment to talks with union leaders who will walk out of their classrooms on June 30th - despite the fact they have already dismissed negotiations as a "sham".

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), has told politics.co.uk that the government is not acting in "good faith" because it is already committed to pushing through changes to pension contributions and payouts.

"Let's stick to the talks and let's not have the kind of militancy that will disturb family life and will mark a retrograde step to the profession just at the moment," Mr Gove told BBC1's The Andrew Marr programme.

"I have enormous sympathy for the position many teachers find themselves in, because pensions are an integral part of the way teachers are well-rewarded.

"But we've got negotiations at the moment... in order to make sure we can have pensions that are fair to teachers but fair to other taxpayers as well. That's why I think the industrial action is premature."

Not all schools will close as a result of the strikes. Headteachers will have to decide whether they have enough non-union staff to keep their school open.

Mr Gove called on heads to do all they could to leave schools open, in a bid to minimise the knock-on impact the strike will have on parents.

"If schools aren't open on Thursday there'll be massive inconvenience for parents, particularly single parents," he added, calling for schools to be open "so that children are doing something purposeful".

The education secretary said he feared the strikes would damage the reputation of Britain's teachers on the international education stage.

"I've been worried for some time now that the reputation of teachers in this country is not as high as it should be," he said.

"I do worry that taking industrial action, being on the picket line, will actually mean the respect in which teachers should be held is taken back a little bit. That will be a shame for all of us who want a better education system."

Cabinet sources revealed the government is considering using "contingency measures", perhaps falling short of anti-union legislation, if the teachers' strike over their pensions extends to a wider public sector protest, the Sunday Mirror reported.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union are set to join teachers by striking on June 30th.

Mr Gove refused to be drawn on the issue, but noted: "The public have a very low tolerance for anything that disrupts their hard-working lifestyles."

He is set to make becoming a teacher harder by increasing the difficulty level of literacy and numeracy tests used for trainee teachers.

Speaking on the same programme, shadow Welsh secretary Peter Hain appeared to contradict Mr Miliband's comment that strikes were not a good idea.

"I don't think political leaders, in opposition or in government, should either applaud strikes or condemn strikes," he said.

Conservative party deputy chairman Michael Fallon said the Labour leader needed to "force" Mr Hain to retract his comments to demonstrate strong leadership of his party.

"Otherwise people will see this as just another example of Ed Miliband being a weak leader of a divided party," he said.

Tags:
• michael gove
,
• public sector pensions
,
• schools
,
• strikes