Education reforms promised by Labour are a “long way off” the “scale of change” needed, the leader of a teaching union has warned.
Giving his first annual conference speech as general secretary of the NEU teaching union, ahead of an expected general election later this year, Daniel Kebede used his platform to question the Labour Party’s commitment to education as a priority - as well as to attack the current Conservative government’s record on schools.
Addressing union members in Bournemouth today, Mr Kebede warned the education secretary Gillian Keegan that “the ball is in [her] court” over avoiding further industrial action by teachers over pay.
Mr Kebede’s warning follows a decision made by union members this week not to move to a formal ballot for strike action over pay and funding in the summer term, instead opting to wait until the government makes a pay offer.
‘We are putting Labour on notice’
The union leader told Sir Keir Starmer that he was putting “any incoming Labour government on notice”, too.
Mr Kebede welcomed Labour’s promises for education, including boosting teacher numbers by 6,500 and replacing single-word Ofsted judgements with report cards, but said they ”are a long way off from the scale of change that we need to see in education”.
He added that the union was “ready to work with a Labour government to embark on a journey of renewal”, but warned that changes “cannot be done on the cheap”.
“Austerity policies have destroyed education. Conference, let me be clear, we didn’t tolerate Tory cuts and we won’t tolerate Labour cuts either,” Mr Kebede warned.
“So just as we have placed this government on notice, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, we put any incoming Labour government on notice also,” he added.
Mr Kebede also used his speech to praise Liberal Democrat education pledges, in particular ”taxing tech giants to fund mental health support in schools”, but admitted the polls show the party will not have a chance of winning power at an election.
A Labour spokesperson said: “Boosting opportunity for every child through high and rising standards in education will be one of Labour’s five missions for government.
“Labour will put education at the forefront of national life once again, so we can transform the life chances of children across our country.”
NEU ‘prepared’ to take industrial action
On Thursday, NEU members voted in favour of a “snap poll” on the government’s forthcoming pay offer, which is expected in the summer term.
If the pay offer was ”rejected with a convincing turnout”, NEU members said that the union should then move to a formal ballot.
In its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) - published in February - the Department for Education said that teachers’ pay rises should be lower than the past two years and return to “a more sustainable level”.
However, the DfE has not spelt out an explicit pay rise percentage for 2024-25 as normal.
In Bournemouth today, Mr Kebede said: “Gillian Keegan, this is your chance. You can avoid further industrial action. The ball is in your court.
“We are ready, we are prepared and we are able to take any further industrial action that ensures our members and our schools get the fair deal they deserve,” he added.
And Mr Kebede added: ”Gillian Keegan has said she is doing an ‘f-ing good job’, but Gillian...You. Are. Not.”
Mr Kebede’s words come after Ms Keegan was caught on camera after an interview last year saying: “Does anyone ever say, you know what, you’ve done a fucking good job, because everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing?”
Ofsted ‘in special measures’
Mr Kebede also used his speech to tell the new chief inspector of Ofsted that he cannot “win back the trust” of teachers.
“I’d like to say this to Martyn Oliver: Ofsted does not require improvement, it is in special measures. No amount of rebrand, no amount of reform can win back the trust of the profession,” he said.
On Wednesday, members of the NEU voted for their union to launch a “public-facing” campaign calling for Ofsted to be abolished.
However, speaking to union members this week, the sister of Ruth Perry, Professor Julia Waters, warned that “no one is going to abolish Ofsted any time soon, whether the education secretary is part of a Conservative or a Labour government”.
‘We need more disputes and victories’
Mr Kebede also called for several other changes, including ending the “suffocating regime of toxic testing” and the “knowledge-rich curriculum”.
The union leader repeated the NEU’s campaign for schools funding, after the relaunched School Cuts website warned in November that almost all secondary schools will be unable to cope with cost increases in 2024-25 without making cuts to education provision.
He also pointed to the ”shocking state of our school buildings”, which he claimed was due to a deliberate £43.8 billion underspend on the school estate since 2010.
The majority of teachers responding to a NEU survey, published today, said problems with school facilities had negatively impacted their students’ learning environment.
And on workload, Mr Kebede said the “modest victory” of the “task force” set up by the government as part of the pay settlement last summer must “not increase the workload of our valued support staff colleagues”.
Initial recommendations accepted by the government earlier this year included the scrapping of performance-related pay and reinserting a revised list of administrative tasks that teachers should not have to do.
And, listing some of the disputes won by the union over the years, Mr Kebede said, “We need more disputes and we need more victories.”
Online Safety Act does not go far enough
Mr Kebede also hit out at the Online Safety Act, warning that it “does not go far enough”.
The Online Safety Bill, which was made law last year, aimed to create a new set of laws to protect children and adults online and to make social media companies “more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms”.
However, Mr Kebede warned that “we must go further”.
He called for an independent parliamentary commission “as a start of a process of deep-seated reform to the way social media is regulated”.
Mr Kebede told the press last week that the rise of anti-sexism and misogyny “goes well beyond” the influencer Andrew Tate and that the situation has “got worse since everyone’s invited”.
A DfE spokesperson said its “plan to raise standards across the education sector is working” and “we have a world-class education system…thanks to the dedication of our hard-working teachers”.
“Overall school funding is rising to over £60 billion in 2024-25, its highest-ever level in real terms per pupil - and teachers have already benefitted from two historic pay awards totalling over 12 per cent in just two years,” they added.
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