NUT News 19: What next?
3 July 2001
Government pushes forward on its privatisation agenda
What they said then:
"EAZ policy is not about business making a profit."
Labour's Secretary of State for Education - February 1999
What they say now:
"She is equally robust about businesses running schools for profit."
Labour's Secretary of State for Education - June 2001,
as reported by Judith Judd, TES, June 2001
And the Prime Minister's Agenda?
"... to make it possible for schools to be managed against a performance
management contract by organisations with real expertise in school
improvement."
Rt. Hon. Tony Blair - 21 May 2001, speech at Gravesend, Kent
Dinner at downing street
Dinner at No. 10 Downing Street on 27 June gave the opportunity for a group
of TUC leaders to receive information on the extension of the Government's
involvement of the private sector further into public services.
Education was the test bed for the involvement of the private sector with
the outsourcing of Local Education Authority services, Education Action
Zones, city academies and the private management of certain schools.
No organisation representing teachers was invited by the Prime Minister to
the meeting at No. 10. All those present were contributors to the Labour
Party.
Adverse reports
A 'think tank' close to the Government has strongly criticised the
Government's record of public-private partnerships. The Institute for Public
Policy Research says that the Private Finance Initiative has failed in
health and education and led to underspending by government departments.
CBI Director General, Digby Jones, said that too often in the past
privatisation had been used as a means of lowering workers' wages and
conditions rather than improving the delivery of services.
The report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by the NUT, showed how in
Education Action Zones the proposals for schools to cede powers and hand
over the management to private companies had not been pursued because of the
concern and opposition of teachers.
Education - a public service
The TUC is calling for a 'Partnership Pact' with the Government. Only the
NUT is seeking to ensure that the TUC's approach is to protect education as
a public service and to:
* oppose the outsourcing of education support services and school
management;
* condemn profit making for shareholders at the expense of the public
funding for the provision of education; and to
* resist the transfer of teachers from employment by LEAs to private
companies.
Late news - 2 July 2001
The Government Working Party on Governing Bodies is today being asked to
agree government proposals whereby the governing body of any school may
agree to pass the management of the school to a private company; the deal
being that the private company would be given 51 per cent of the places on
the governing body.
The private company would therefore control all of the decisions of the
governing body. The extended discretionary powers of governing bodies over
the pay and contract of teachers introduced by the STRB supported by ATL,
NASUWT, NAHT, SHA and PAT would make teachers vulnerable to decisions of the
private company which would worsen the pay and conditions of teachers while
technically leaving them as the employees of the LEA. Only the NUT is urging
the TUC to oppose the Government's plans to extend privatization in
education.
General Secretary, Doug McAvoy, said:
"The NUT is opposed to the privatisation of the publicly provided education
services. While there has always been a place for business to give support
to maintained schools, the involvement of the private sector should be
limited and no profit made from the provision of education. Teachers should
not be transferred to private companies."
NUT membership in the private sector
The NUT has always organised teachers in the private sector and in
independent schools. They choose to work in the private sector and will
understand that teachers do not wish to be transferred without consent from
one sector to the other.
Education for children, not for profit
Teachers in maintained schools will resist the transfer of their employment
to the private sector. Their commitment to their professional roles within
education as a public service, is incompatible with profit-making for the
benefit of shareholders of private companies.
The public, governors and parents alike will expect teachers to be committed
not to the generation of profit for private companies but to the education
of children and young people.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Please see the NUT homepage at