Ministers have learnt nothing from lockdown
Oh come on! At the risk of sounding like John McEnroe, you cannot be serious. Does the government really think teachers can work from home and do a proper job?
Sure, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s new wheeze to tackle the recruitment crisis in schools by allowing teachers to duck out of the classroom at the beginning or end of each day (or take Fridays off altogether) will appeal to “self care” obsessed younger entrants to the profession. Millennials and Gen Z are notoriously preoccupied with achieving what they see as a healthy work-life balance. They seem to think nothing of sacrificing career advancement to spend more time wild swimming and exploring their inner chi. But what about the kids whose futures depend on a decent education, which requires teachers to show up? Are they again to be sacrificed at the altar of adult expedience?
To the utter shame of our political leaders, a generation of schoolchildren are still paying the price for the devastating decision to shut schools during the pandemic. Many have since admitted it was a terrible mistake or, as Sir Gavin Williamson (who was education secretary at the time) put it, “a panic decision, made without having children’s interests front and centre.”
Locked out of the classroom for weeks on end, hundreds of thousands of children were given the impression that full-time education is optional, and that the occasional online lesson is a reasonable substitute for a proper timetable. Naturally, their academic attainment suffered – as did their other development. After such a long, cruel period of enforced isolation, no wonder so many developed social anxiety and other behavioural problems. More than four years later, many have never returned to school. Indeed, research published earlier this year suggests that one in five kids is still routinely absent: the worst figures on record.
Against this backdrop, what on earth are ministers thinking encouraging more absenteeism – this time from teachers? All this does is reinforce the very message that has already caused so much damage: that turning up to school every day, from registration in the morning until the bell rings at the end of lessons in the afternoon, is optional – and that what was once a universally accepted routine can be casually altered to suit different lifestyles.
Granted, the Government is not suggesting that teachers be allowed to conduct lessons from home. The idea is that they should be able to condense their usual free periods into blocks that can be taken at the beginning or end of each day. Instead of spending the time they ordinarily have between lessons working in the staff room or empty classrooms, they will be able to “bank” it to mark homework or prepare lessons from home. Phillipson hopes the measure, to be issued in new guidance for schools, will stem the tide of younger women leaving the profession when they have children.
Almost certainly so! The prospect of 13 weeks paid holiday a year – including a six-week summer break – and all this flexibility during term time will surely make the job much more attractive to those trying to juggle work and raising a family. The question is whether those who benefit will actually do the work for which they are being paid?
For the very group of teachers the new policy is designed to help – mothers with young children – are those for whom working from home is most difficult. How on earth are they supposed to mark homework or prepare lessons on the school run? Has Phillipson (who has two children of her own) forgotten what it’s like trying to get anything done while looking after a toddler? The idea that the time will genuinely be used in this way is patently preposterous. Once again, it is the children who will suffer.
For Labour, it is part of a wider pledge to end what Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds calls “the culture of presenteeism” – as if that hasn’t already been eroded. The pandemic put paid to that, revolutionising work patterns. Whether more “WFH” will make people more loyal and efficient – as Reynolds claims – or have the opposite effect remains to be seen. Neither common sense, nor UK productivity figures, point to a positive outcome.
Of course, the mucky fingerprints of trade unionists can be found all over this – just as they were over those catastrophic school closures. Let’s not forget that long after the healthcare emergency was over, they were still pushing to keep our children out of the classroom. As Williamson despairingly remarked of the teaching unions at the time, it seems “they really, really do just hate work.”
