While I doubt that there are more of these in teaching, the official nature of protests and industrial strikes can’t be ignored. Informal protests are common place in schools, and most prominently in recent times over university fees. These aren’t really the types of protest I’m referring to.
Quite often smaller protests are organised at schools, sometimes over policy changes such as school uniforms or more important issues like merging of schools. Some of these protests include the welfare and treatment of individual teachers, and it’s these that are relevant to my point.
Do any other career paths, save politics, see so much activity in terms of peaceful protests? Are there any careers at all where people are so concerned about the welfare of it’s practitioners that they take to the picket line? I’ve only ever heard of that happening for prisoners.
In terms of industrial actions, again, not all of them are relevant to the poor working conditions for teachers. Most nowadays are in protest of schools becoming academies, and of wage cuts, something that is very common through all professions.
But just the fact that they are there adds weight to the matter: something is very wrong in this career sector. And some of them do relate to my point: for example action against new initiatives proves that there is too much moving of the goalposts.
Can you imagine an education system where there is no need for protests of this type? Where staff, students and everyone else involved are happy with the way things are being done? I’m sure it would involve much better management, much better governance, and an absence of all the problems present in the rest of this series.
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