Oh dear \u2013 it\u2019s difficult to know where to begin with Andy Maciver\u2019s intemperate, inaccurate and ill-judged diatribe (in the Herald newspaper) against Scottish education in general and \u201cteacher unions\u201d specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our schools face significant challenge in delivering equitable educational outcomes in a society which seemingly tolerates growing levels of economic inequality amongst its children, more plainly experienced as poverty by one in four pupils, and where teachers are required to undertake the mounting challenge of dealing with additional support needs and post covid behaviours with minimal targeted resources. Notwithstanding the challenge, Scotland\u2019s education system if not \u201cfailing\u201d as Mr Maciver asserts. Scotland ranked 4th in the most recent OECD survey of Global Competencies, a measure attested to by Andrea Schleisser, Director of Education at the OECD, as the critical metric for 21st Century education systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Maciver claims \u201cto have no real issue\u201d with the recently agreed pay rise for teachers but bizarrely rants against the teacher unions who negotiated said settlement, as if somehow teachers are different from teaching unions. Scotland\u2019s largest teaching union, the EIS, which I was General Secretary of for 10 years, is a member led organisation where elected teachers conduct discussions at all levels on behalf of members and where members themselves make critical decisions through the democratic process of balloting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His claim that unions are \u201clargely disinterested\u201d in matters beyond pay is simply unsustainable \u2013 go online and read the detailed, researched and informed position papers the EIS has submitted on every issue under discussion in Scottish education, including the current reform agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His reference to the 2018 Education Bill is factually inaccurate. It is true that the John Swinney was persuaded by a range of voices, including the EIS and, critically, the Government\u2019s own International Council of Education Advisors to take a collaborative partnership approach to achieving the aims of the Bill rather than going down a legislative pathway which would undoubtedly have led to the poisonous binary approach of Scotland\u2019s politicians. But rather than \u201ckilling\u201d the ambition of the bill. It did in fact deliver it though an \u201cEmpowerment Agenda\u201d, including a Headteachers\u2019 Charter, which was supported by all within the education system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather than being a \u201cmalevolent\u201d force in the above scenario, the EIS was a constructive partner in successful social dialogue construct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I represented the EIS on the Government\u2019s Covid Education Recovery Group (CERG). I struggle to understand how seeking effective mitigations around school reopening so that school staff, pupils and their families were as safe as possible can be described as \u201cmalevolent\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I understand that Mr Maciver has some historical connection with the Conservative Party but when I have seen him on television panels he always struck me as quite balanced in his approach. Not on this occasion. His bitter, anti teacher union rhetoric could have come straight out of No 10\u2019s playbook. I avoid social media \u2013 it\u2019s a place where reasoned debate is set aside in favour of outrage, anger and bile. I regret that these traits are appearing so frequently in opinion pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Larry Flanagan was General Secretary of the EIS from 2012 \u2013 2022, having previously worked as a teacher for 33 years. He continues to be a registered teacher, doing occasional supply work.<\/mark><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh dear \u2013 it\u2019s difficult to know where to begin with Andy Maciver\u2019s intemperate, inaccurate and ill-judged diatribe (in the Herald newspaper) against Scottish education in general and \u201cteacher unions\u201d specifically. Our schools face significant challenge in delivering equitable educational outcomes in a society which seemingly tolerates growing levels of economic inequality amongst its children, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2572,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions\/2572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/apr2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}