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The Silent Conflict: Harlow College

tim — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:37:47 +0000

A year ago, teaching staff at Harlow College staged a five-day strike: an unprecedented action for them but one which reflected the desperation of the situation as a politically motivated principalship, led by Colin Hindmarch, played an ideologically driven game with the interests of learners in order to smash the union. The conditions imposed upon teachers included a massive reduction in wages for many with the introduction of a new unqualified ‘tutor’ role, the imposition of an effective 56-hour working week and reduction of holidays from 45 to 30 days a year. This was imposed despite the fact that Hindmarch created more management positions and raised their pay by 11%. However, on top of all this, around 40 experienced teachers were denied opportunities to continue working there because they were deemed to be opposed to the new Teaching and Learning Strategy. A further similar number of teachers opted for voluntary redundancy, unable to accept such a draconian and spiteful regime.

Since the headline-grabbing events of last June, there has been little said and even less printed on the state of affairs at Harlow College. This is not because it has settled down. On the contrary, the situation has become ever more desperate, in particular for the students.

But why the silence? The college principalship was suffering most due to adverse publicity and news reports which exposed its cruel, politically motivated initiatives; it cleverly contrived a situation which would stifle criticism, in particular from the one source which should have been the most vocal: the Universities and Colleges Union. After the redundancies and the failure to abide by the law to meaningfully negotiate the new contracts, huge pressure from the union and Bill Rammell MP was placed on the college to accept ACAS negotiations. The college accepted this with the proviso that UCU would never publicly criticise the college. This UCU foolishly accepted.

In the wake of this agreement, a Working Party was established to find a way forward, due to conclude at Christmas 2007. However, enjoying the continued silence of UCU, the college pushed back this deadline month after month. It is now set to conclude in September. Coupled with a new learner agreement which students were obliged to sign upon enrolment which also prohibited them from making public criticisms, this has meant that the College is now able to bask in relative silence. Only a Guardian article of 18th March 2008 exposed a hint of the appalling conditions at the college, thanks to the bravery of the president of the local NUS refusing to sign the learner agreement. However, UCU, like the principal, was tragically ‘unavailable for comment’. The college continues to hold its remaining teaching staff and students hostage to a never-ending working party which the union foolishly allowed itself to be outmanoeuvred into accepting.

Now we must turn to the details of what has been happening at the college, tucked away from public scrutiny. The staff turnover rate continues to be alarmingly high; one principal tutor in English resigning after little more than a fortnight in position, a sociology teacher sacked after a month and a psychology teacher given two hours to clear his desk after having joined UCU less than 24 hours previously.

The LSC and Ofsted published damning reports on the college last autumn. Ofsted was most scathing, pointing out their shock at an ICT class of 100 students being taught via a personal address system.

At a public meeting effectively forced upon the Principal and Bill Rammell, Colin Hindmarch claimed that the costs of redundancies were not high, at only around £150,000. When pressed to reveal the actual figures, some months later, he acknowledged that the cost was just under £1 million. Now seeking further clarification, corporation board minutes reveal it to be more like £1.3 million.

Some may argue that this could be justified if the college improves its service to students and achieves better results. But this is perhaps the most tragic story of all. In March 2008, the college delayed releasing its winter A-level exam results to students for almost a week. When finally revealed, no details of grades were published but only a paltry 58% of AS-level exams were passed – a huge decline on the previous year. Following this, the chairman of the Corporation Board, Martin Coleman, said in the local paper, “We are happy with the way things are going.” The significance of these results are that these students have only experienced learning under the Hindmarch regime, including his peculiar ‘subject days’ where students learn the same subject once a week but for the whole day.

The college also rigged the elections to the posts of student representatives on the corporation board. Realising that the NUS leader would have won any open contest, they contrived a complicated delegatory system to avoid any public debate and to insulate the corporation board from hearing real concerns and criticisms.

The college is also engaging in the practice of withdrawing students from their exams weeks before they are due to be held. The students are then transferred onto short ICT classes which they cannot fail to pass. This then serves to distort the ‘success rate’ data because the student will receive certification and the failure to complete the course which has occupied them for the rest of the year would not be revealed in any figures. Accounts of students begging to be allowed to sit the exams that they have been studying for months, under wholly inadequate conditions, have been rife. Many parents have had pay for private tuition and are bitter that this may be exploited by the college as they may still take credit for the results achieved.

The local MP and minister for the area, Bill Rammell, has been most reluctantly dragged into the dispute and now finds himself accused of complacency and expediency. He once criticised UCU publicly for their methods last year but refused to give details so they could be given an opportunity to justify themselves. He also disassociated himself from the article published in the Guardian but refuses to elaborate on those elements which he considered were untrue. He also claimed that academic opinion on ‘Subject Days’ for FE colleges were mixed, with some claiming they were a good idea. Can any reader enlighten us as to where subject days are deployed successfully?

Last month, Rammell and Hindmarch attempted to pacify critics by inviting a few select individuals around the college to see the wonderful new facilities. This may have made Rammell look good for the taxpayers’ money being invested but most concluded that the college could not blame poor resources for the college’s failures. Because of this, Hindmarch was subjected to wholesale criticism where he even conceded that ‘subject days’ were failing, citing the fact that May – a crucial month for exam preparations – has two bank holidays, depriving students of essential learning time for any course they study on Mondays. This was pointed out to him when he first tried to impose ‘subject days’ in March 2007, but he simply sacked those who raised such professional concerns.

Scandalously, Bill Rammell still opposes any calls for Colin Hindmarch to resign. He claims that to remove him would be the ‘populist’ thing to do but is not in the interest of the students. Even though Hindmarch has the LSC, Ofsted and the QIA almost constantly in residence, providing stabilisers for this child in blue braces who cannot ride his bike, Rammell insists on protecting him. His majority is only a tiny 97 votes and yet he has spoken up to protect Hindmarch’s position with far greater voracity than he ever did to protect the jobs of around a hundred teachers this time last year. No one believes that Rammell would ever send a child of his to an institution run by Hindmarch and most people are truly shocked at his attitude and downright complacency. The real reason why he will not call for Hindmarch to resign is because Hindmarch will ignore him. This will expose the reality of Rammell’s impotence and failure to properly act upon the incorporated status of colleges which allowed this wholly unaccountable situation to arise.

There is no end in sight for the conflict and it is foolish of Mr Rammell to continually search for the shortest route for a mystical Harlow College paper towel so that he can wipe his hands of the whole affair. The college faces a huge litigation bill when UCU goes to court for protective awards for the college’s failure to meaningfully consult over the redundancies, and there are cases for unfair dismissal and victimisation as well. Harlow College is a tragic saga and its full story will be known one day. This article provides just a glimpse of a curriculum’s worth of lessons that we could all learn from.

Size of Teachers’ Strike Exceeds Predictions

Ellie Keen — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:35:27 +0000

Teachers voice their anger at government policy

Two hundred thousand teachers organised in the National Union of Teachers came out on strike on Thursday in opposition to the Labour government’s wage-cutting pay deal. NUT members had balloted 3-1 to reject the three-year pay award of 2.45 percent this year, followed by 2.3 percent over the next two years.

Thee teachers were joined by 100,000 civil servants in the Public and Commercial Service Union (PCS), who are opposing a similar cap on their wages imposed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown throughout the public sector.

According to the Guardian, “More than a million pupils at 8,000 schools were expected to miss school … and those predictions may have been exceeded. Several local authorities reported more than twice as many schools closed or partly closed as expected.”

One in three schools in England and Wales were closed, despite the fact that the other two teaching unions, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), refused to support the day of action.

In London, 708 schools shut down completely, and 769 were partially closed. In the South West the strike closed 254 schools, and in Liverpool 187 schools closed their doors, while 213 were only able to operate partially. In the North East 402 schools were shut, 500 were closed in Wales, and 600 in Yorkshire. The West Midlands saw 200 of its schools closed and 264 partially shut.

Teachers held marches and rallies up and down the country, expressing their determination to beat what is being dubbed as Brown’s pay freeze. In London between 6,000 and 10,000 teachers and public sector workers marched together, and rallies were held in Liverpool, Preston, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Cardiff and Wrexham. In Birmingham, 1,000 workers took to the streets.

The London march began in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where singer-songwriter and political activist Billy Bragg played, then walked through the Strand, past Downing Street, and ended in a meeting in the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster. The hall held only 2,600 people, meaning that three-quarters of the marchers, including reporters from the WSWS, were unable to enter.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to teachers Keith Marsh, Jan Moses, Adeola Oladejo and Sonia Jallone from a north London primary school about why they were striking:

“For more pay, so that we get more teachers in the profession rather than lose them,” said Jan. “I have a 16-year-old daughter who would be a great teacher, but I would never let her do it with the way things are. It’s about respect. Either the government respects us, or they don’t.

“We are fed up with being told that teaching is a vocation and we should be grateful that we get paid anything at all. Why do you have to take on Teaching and Learning Responsibilities just to earn a half-decent wage? Teaching itself is an important enough job.”

“It’s about other issues as well,” Keith added. ”The paperwork: the fact that we are now expected to be psychologists, social workers and nurses as well as teachers.”

“Officially we work 27.5 hours per week, but how is it that I am working 60 hours?” Jan interjected. “Also everything is based on SATs [standardized tests] now, but there is so much more to what we do.”

Keith agreed: “When you are teaching Year Six you have kids crying their eyes out or not coming in because they are so worried about SATs.”

“I am on strike not just over pay but because of stress levels, workload and changing targets,” Sonia said. “PPA [Preparation and Assessment time] has helped, but it is not always kept to. We need to go back to the old methods where we focused on teaching. We don’t have to assess everything all the time.”

“PPA time was the government admitting that the amount of paperwork we have to do is ridiculous,” Keith stated. “Anyway, if they can find £50 billion to bail out the banks, why can’t they pay us what we deserve? Some 50 percent of newly qualified teachers leave the profession within three years. What a waste of talent and training!”

The four agreed that the one-day strike was not enough and thought it was a shame that it had gone ahead without the support of the other unions—particularly those representing caretakers, teaching assistants and learning support assistants who in most cases are paid less than half the salary of teachers. These workers are also expected to do teaching work with groups of children and in some cases take classes while teachers are having PPA time.

Jo Boyle works at a West London primary school that had been closed down by the strike. “I came out because I think it is important to support striking en masse,” she said. “I don’t think it will change anything, but I believe in acting as a group to try and change things. I’ve never been involved with the teaching union before, but I expected people to be in support of the strike because I think of teachers as socialists who support change.

“It is not so much about pay, although it is difficult for teachers in London to get on the property ladder, but we have a reasonable quality of life compared to many people. It is more about the amount we do and how much of ourselves we put into it. We don’t feel we are being valued. We see other people working less, with less responsibility and being paid more.

“The system of pay doesn’t support people who want to just be a good class teacher. People are forced into management because of pay issues. I took on a maths TLR [Teaching and Learning Responsibility] after only one-and-a-half years in teaching because I needed more money to pay my rent and live in London, when it would probably have been better for me to have more teaching experience first.

“The strike would have had much more of an impact if the rest of the unions had come out. I wonder why the other unions accepted the pay deal and why the NUT didn’t work harder to get them out with us.”

Jo agreed that the NUT had not opposed the constant attacks on education: “The union should have raised issues like the National Curriculum, SATs and Performance Related Pay [PRP],” she said. “We didn’t know anything about PRP until it was already accepted and in place and then you don’t feel you can do anything about it.”

Katie Noble said she was on strike because the pay deal was “completely unfair. It is below inflation. We are asked to pay more for various things in daily life, but this is not reflected in our pay.

“We put in extra all the time. We give up weekends and stay late planning, marking, filling in paperwork.”

Gilly Chapman agreed: “People have huge expectations of what new initiatives we will take on.”

“There is always something new,” Katie added, “you think you’ve got your planning sorted and the government brings in a new framework and you have to start all over again.”

Gilly felt that the strike could be the start of more general action. Katie agreed that there was unrest across social services. “I don’t think the government will back down, but I don’t think it will end here,” she said.

A 1,000-strong rally was held in Manchester at Friends Meeting House, which was packed to capacity. After the meeting teachers joined public sector workers organised in UNISON in a march through the city. Marchers were greeted by spontaneous applause from passers-by, in stark contrast to the media barrage claiming widespread opposition to the strike amongst parents.

“I am very surprised at the turnout,” said Lindsey Lenton, who has been teaching for two years. “I thought there might be hostility from the public. But people were clapping. I’ve brought my 10-year-old niece along so she knows why her teachers are on strike. I love teaching, but it is exhausting, and despite the fact that myself and my husband both have decent jobs, we still had a struggle to get on the property ladder.”

A retired nurse joined the Manchester rally in Albert Square and expressed her support for the strike. “When I was working as a nurse we had to come out on strike and I agree with the teachers. Now I’m retired it’s still a struggle, I have a mortgage to pay and all the bills.”

In Sheffield a young teacher from Rotherham told a rally, “I love my job passionately, but it places enormous demands upon me and is very time consuming.

“New teachers like myself have to make large sacrifices and it is an indictment of New Labour that I begin my teaching career with imposing debts from tuition fees and student loans. Many like myself have sickening levels of debt.”

She explained how she cannot afford to run a car, or buy a house, whilst everyday costs are rising too. She expressed her revulsion for New Labour and their reneging on promises, amongst them Tony Blair’s mantra of “education, education, education,” saying, “We deserve a government that puts its money where its mouth is. I’m disgusted that teachers cannot afford an average house in an average city.”

One teacher told the WSWS, “It’s not just about teachers having financial difficulties. Education is being damaged. None of our Year Seven pupils have had an English teacher this year. I was wary about coming out on strike. I don’t take this action lightly.”

Another added, “I never have a weekend free. I cannot really afford to go on strike, but I am now doing the lesson planning for two or three other teachers on a regular basis. We have an excessive workload and it has increased all the time during the last few years. I think the problem is that we should all be taking action and speaking with one voice.”

One teacher had gone for a job interview at school and was asked whether she was going on strike. “There is no department in my school that hasn’t been affected by staff absences,” she said. “People are leaving teaching, they can’t recruit new people and there are those off work with stress.

“It’s got so bad it’s nearly impossible to do the job. This strike is less about pay than it is about conditions. I know newly qualified teachers who can’t afford to miss a day’s pay to go on strike.”

Interviewed on Channel 4, Schools Minister Jim Knight attempted to talk up teachers’ pay by saying that their pay had risen by 19 percent since 1997. That means that on average over 11 years, teachers pay has risen by significantly less that 2 percent a year, a pay cut in effect given the level of inflation now standing at over 4 percent. There has been a huge rise in house prices, as well as burgeoning utility bills.

Newly qualified teachers are particularly hard hit because they start their working lives with debts from student loans averaging £20,000. The government are also claiming that teachers are earning on average £34,000. This is in fact the maximum salary after 10 years service, but only if teachers pass their annual performance management monitoring and reviews, and is wholly dependent on the constraints of the schools budget.

Knight also attempted to hide behind the School Teachers Independent Pay Review body, which recommended the pay deal to the government. This body is independent in name only, its members being hand picked by the government.

Teachers in Further Education colleges also joined schoolteachers in their day of strike action. Despite the fact that these workers teach A Levels and GCSEs [General Certificate of Secondary Education] to students aged 16 and above, they are not paid on a par with the rest of the profession.

At the rallies particular applause was reserved for calls for united action of all public sector workers in opposition to the government. Real unity, however, can only be achieved when working people build their own organisations that have as their aim the utilization of the vast wealth of society for the satisfaction of human need and not the profits of the minority.

The trades unions have proved themselves incapable of defending living conditions. The economic climate today—of banking collapses, the credit crunch and looming recession—means workers must begin to assert their own independent class and social interests.

Britain’s Teachers and Civil Servants to take One-Day Strike Action

Ellie Keen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For the first time in 21 years, teachers in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) will come out on a one-day strike on April 24 in opposition to the government’s imposition of a 2.45 percent pay award. With the current rate of inflation running at 4.1 percent this represents a pay cut in real terms. To make things worse, the pay award offered in January runs for three years—with a 2.45 percent increase in September, and just 2.3 percent in each of the following two years.

Members of Europe’s largest teaching union will be joined by over 100,000 civil servants in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) covering ten government departments and further education college lecturers in the University and College Union (UCU) in more than 250 colleges in England. Over 20,000 Birmingham City council workers will also begin strike action on April 23.

The government claims that pay restraint is necessary in order to keep inflation down. Schools Minister Jim Knight went so far as to tell the Times Educational Supplement that “it is because teachers have mortgages too that I know that they understand the need for a pay deal that helps deliver low inflation, low interest rates and a stable economy.”

Workers need higher pay precisely because they are facing rising mortgage, food and fuel costs, as well as credit card debts.

Teachers and other workers are not responsible for the financial crisis of the banking system, or the looming recession. Yet, while the Brown government is making available between £50 billion and £150 billion to the banks to cover their bad debts, and has spent billions more on the military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, they are insisting that workers accept below-inflation pay rises for years to come.

The starting pay of a teacher in England and Wales, at September 2008 would be £20,627 and in London’s Inner/Outer/Fringe this only rises to £25,000/£24,000/£21,619.

Students and newly qualified teachers are beginning their working lives unable to afford a mortgage and with debts from student loans averaging £20,000. The interest rate on student loans has just been raised to 4.8 percent.

According to the BBC, “grants to cash-strapped teachers from the Teacher Support Network charity rose 70 percent in the first quarter of 2008,” and more teachers struggling with their mortgages sought help from the benevolent fund run by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT).

Chief executive Patrick Nash of the Teacher Support Network, which gives hardship grants in addition to advice to teachers who are struggling, told the BBC, “More of our callers are having to seek help simply to make ends meet, showing that the national credit crunch is having a very real effect on teachers in particular.”

However, the NUT is not mounting a serious challenge to the government’s pay award. This is a one-day token strike to provide a focus for the rising anger of its members, after which the union is merely asking teachers to lobby local councillors and MPs leading to a protest at parliament in June. The summer break takes place for six weeks in July/August, so nothing further is likely to take place until September when the pay rise comes into effect.

The very fact that the NUT has not led a national strike in 21 years testifies to its refusal to oppose the constant attacks on teachers’ wages and working conditions. Indeed, over the past two decades the union has collaborated with successive governments in a massive overhaul of education, which includes the following:

Implementation and extension of the proscriptive and unwieldy National Curriculum, without consulting teachers and with no reference to child psychology.

Statutory annual tests for children at all ages including SATS, which have made children in the UK amongst the unhappiest in Europe, according to a recent United Nations report.

The setting of arbitrary targets in line with continual testing of children, dressed up as “raising standards” and “inclusion” of children from poorer areas, which again bears no relation to how children develop. Teachers have to waste precious time that should be spent with children compiling meaningless test data about children as young as five years old. This information is sent to the government, to be used as a stick to beat teachers whose classes are not performing up to standard.

The introduction of Performance Management as a way to smuggle in payment by results. Newly qualified teachers no longer automatically climb up the pay scale with experience, but have to prove they are worthy of a pay increment by being monitored. This is reinforced by regular OFSTED inspections.

The drafting in of untrained classroom assistants, a so-called “army of mums,” as a cheap labour workforce on temporary contracts who can even replace, at the discretion of the school head, trained teachers in the classroom.

The merging of the departments of Education and Social Services, using the pretext of the tragic death of Victoria Climbie, that will pave the way for further cuts to the social welfare budget.

The introduction of privately run academies headed by dubious outfits such as the Vardy Foundation that favours the teaching of creationism.

Education has been used as an opportunity for big business to make huge amounts of money. Not only have schools been forced to run as businesses with their own budgets, but they have to buy in privately run services like school meals, repairs, educational psychology support, whilst the government hands over millions to the building industry in its Buildings Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

Alongside the lack of funds for school and support services, schools have been transformed into instruments for the social policing of children with severe social and psychological problems—with unqualified “mentors” substituting for trained social workers.

The role of the NUT in allowing this to take place is only eclipsed by that of the NASUWT and the smaller Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).

The NASUWT has opposed strike action, with the spurious claim that its members are more concerned about their increased workload. Its members will be carrying out business as usual on Thursday, with no challenge from the NUT. The ATL have said that under no condition must their members take strike action. (The lecturers in further education are striking for pay parity with teachers that were promised to them four years ago!)

One must add that the National Union of Students (NUS), which is Labour controlled, will do nothing to support the lecturers or teachers. The only listing for April 24 on its website is for a Student governor “toolkit day.”

Essential lessons must be drawn from these experiences. The attacks on the pay and conditions of teachers since Labour came to power in 1997 have taken place in the midst of a boom. Today the UK and world economy stand on the brink of a recession after the eruption of a banking crisis that is routinely compared with the Wall Street Crash of 1929. This must herald an ever more savage assault on the public sector by Brown.

Organisations that could not defend their members under an expanding economy will never do so when the recession really bites.

The working class must build its own organisations of class struggle.

Teachers’ pay is only one aspect of a broader fight to defend education from its systematic undermining by Labour and its big business backers. For this to be successful demands that this struggle is taken out of the hands of the trade union bureaucracy through the creation of rank and file organisations of teachers that cut across the carefully-cultivated sectional differences that divide and weaken workers in education.

NUT members must do what their leadership has refused to—oppose the collaboration with the government by the NASUWT and ATL and campaign for joint action by all teachers. This should be extended to all other workers in education. At the same time, support must be built amongst parents to reject the claims by the government and the media that the teacher’s action is endangering children’s education.

Only when working people organize a mass, independent political movement and assert their own social and class interests can the immense wealth of society be utilized to provide high quality schools and public services for all.

UK teachers set for first national strike in 21 years

tim — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:27:18 +0000

Members of the National Union of Teachers are set to take part in the first national teachers strike in 21 years in response to the government’s failure to keep pay-rises in-line with the rate of inflation.

After four years of below-inflation pay increases, up to 200,000 members of one of the biggest UK teaching unions, the National Union of Teachers (NUT), are set to strike on April 24th. The membership voted for a one-day walkout. 75% of those voting were in favour of a one-day walkout, with 25% against. Turnout for the vote was 32%.

NUT’s last national strike was under Margaret Thatcher’s goverment in 1987. This latest call for industrial action is in response to the proposed 2.45% pay-rise, which, while above the 2% cap prime minister Gordon Brown called-for on public sector pay increases, falls below the current 4.1% rate of inflation. Teachers says the propsed 2.45% increase reflects a siginificant cut in the standard of living for both primary and secondary level teachers.

“NUT members have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the campaign to stop cuts in the real pay of teachers.
The government is wrong to determine a pay increase for teachers below the rate of inflation. The rate of inflation is presently 4.1% and teachers will receive for 2008 2.45%.
The consequences of real term pay cuts are familiar to us. They were a feature of the ‘boom and bust’ years before 1997. In that period schools suffered from recruitment and retention problems – there were teacher shortages and morale was low. The NUT wants no return to those bad old days.
I call on the government to think again and ensure that salaries at least keep pay in line with inflation and that there is a recognition of the continuing workload pressures on teachers.” – Steve Sinnott (NUT general secretary)

The 2% cap urged by Gordon Brown is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI, 2.1%), while teachers wanted the pay-rises to be matched to the Retail Price Index (RPI, 4.1%), which takes into account prices of housing, mortgage rates and is a more accurate reflection of actual costs of living. Many new teachers are facing student loan repayments, the interest-rates of which were matched to RPI – this has further angered teachers.

Other teaching unions, such as the NASUWT had previously accepted the proposed 2.45% rise, having perceived it as favourable in comparison with other public-sector workers who received a 1.9% rise. NASUWT “leader” Chris Keates suggests a priority for their members is excessive workload, not pay.