It was announced this week that the government will trying to encourage retired teachers to consider returning to service to help alleviate staff shortages and keep schools open, in order to ease Covid pressures.
Peter Shreeve, Assistant District Secretary of the National Education Union, said,
“We understand the Education Secretary has written to school and college leaders ahead of the Christmas break, acknowledging high staff absence due to Covid and the unavailability of teaching supply staff.
“Of course, we support measures that could help to reduce education disruption. With this call for retired and presumably any unemployed teachers to come forward the government is assuming there will be substantial disruption of education in January.”
Shreeve: Mitigations still not in place
Mr Shreeve went on to say,
“It is important to say that this disruption is likely to be made worse because of the government’s failure to put in place the mitigations and safety measures we have been calling for – on ventilation, air filtration, mask wearing and isolation of very close contacts.
We still need those mitigations to be put in place, not only to safeguard those in schools, but also to encourage recruitment of temporary retired staff.”
Earlier retirement due to pandemic
Mr Shreeve added,
“We are aware some Island staff have taken early retirement during the pandemic due being vulnerable or having vulnerable family members. Some of these older colleagues will be concerned about their chance of contracting Covid and better mitigations will be necessary to reassure them.
“We are aware and extremely concerned about the proposal to recruit these retired staff through teacher supply agencies which rake off scarce funds from schools to maximise profits whilst minimising pay, they offer supply teachers. That is not the right way to behave in response to a national call to arms.”
Registered teacher being offered roles half their pay grade
He went on to say,
“For example, one local extremely well qualified and experienced teacher, despite being registered with several agencies providing work across the south has failed to gain work.
“Why are they continually offered roles that are not commensurate with their history? Indeed, they have been offered some roles on less than half pay as well as roles in South Wales and Shropshire, as agencies have found other Newports!”
Suggested local pool of teachers
Mr Shreeve finished by saying,
“Northern Ireland and Scotland have much better systems for employment of supply staff and in theory these could be created quickly in England if there were sufficient political will. Local authorities are well placed to scale up or create pools of supply, ensuring both safeguarding training requirements and legal criminal requirement checks are in force.
“The Isle of Wight NEU has suggested this to the LA a number of times in the recent past and austerity and different budget owners mean it is not so straightforward. The Education Secretary forgets that the leadership of education establishments is fragmented and not controlled centrally and directly by the Local Authority.
“Yet another reactive late in the day option, which if it is to be successful will need immediate widespread promotion and greater support – not easy on the day that schools break up.”
Read more about Nadhim Zahawi’s plans.
Image: Tim Mossholder under CC BY 2.0
