Teaching jobs under threat

This week’s UK General Election poses tough choice for the UK electorate, which includes many Australians.

The key issue of this election is undoubtedly the need, for whoever holds the keys to Number 10 next week, to drastically rein in public spending and debt.

The main point of difference is how each party aims to achieve that.

Being the beneficiary of large and necessary increases in investment under Tony Blair and New Labour, the education system will come under particular scrutiny.

Any cuts to schools funding, along with further tightening of working visa conditions, will have serious implications for the army of foreign teachers, including thousands of Australians, working in the UK education system.

In the coming age of austerity, what will happen to the UK’s schools?

The Conservatives propose to:
-Restore discipline and order to the classroom.
-Raise the status of the teaching profession.
-Raise standards of achievement.
-Create a new generation of independently run state schools.

Labour propose to:
-Increase spending on frontline childcare, schools and 16-19 learning.
-Expand free nursery places for two-year-olds and raise the 15 hours a week of free nursery education for three and four-year-olds.
-Ensure every pupil leaving primary school is secure in the basics, with a 3Rs guarantee of one-to-one and small-group tuition for every child falling behind; and in secondary school, every pupil with a personal tutor.
-Ensure choice of good schools in every area – and, where parents are not satisfied – the power to bring in new school leadership teams, through mergers and take-overs.

Liberal Democrats propose to:
-Cut class sizes.
-Axe the National Curriculum and replace it with a slimmed-down ‘Minimum Curriculum Entitlement’
-Scale back Key State 2 tests for 11-year-olds.
-Create a General Diploma to brings GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications together.
-Reform league tables.
-Set aside money for schools to increase the energy efficiency of their buildings.

The Tories stated in their manifesto they would raise the profile of the teaching profession through raising the entry requirements to a make teaching a Masters level profession.
How this commitment applies to overseas staff remains unclear from the debate.
With either Labour or the Conservative it seems certain that immigration controls from countries outside the EU will be significantly tightened.

Both parties advocate the system based on points, like that in Australia.
The Conservatives also plan to place a cap on the number of ‘highly skilled’ visas to further control working migrants.
The Tories’ plan for schools to be overtly competitive with each other, through allowing any group to set up their own state funded Academy.

This begs the question – should the tax payer pay for schools set up by marginal or extremist interest groups?
The Academy programme was originally championed by Labour as a way of turning around failing schools.
The programme has been controversial with unions and with the public.
If the Academy programme extends, more staff will not fall within teachers pay and conditions as they do in community or voluntary aided schools.

In terms of funding, The Libeal Democrats and Labour are the only parties stating up-front that they would safeguard spending in ‘frontline’ education, while the Conservatives only make this commitment to health.
The Lib-Dems go further with this commitment stating that they plan to reduce class sizes and put their plans into a statutory framework.
Labour spending commitments centre around their ‘Flagship’ policies of one to one tuition for every child falling behind and small group teaching.

It seems in terms of teacher jobs we may be safer with the worlds of Labour or Lib-Dem, but there are legitimate questions about the educational soundness of many aspects of all parties manifesto aims.
How much these aims are based on educational evidence remains to be demonstrated to education professionals.

If you were a child in a London school – who would you vote for?

Abigail Wiseman is a head teacher of a community school. Share your classoom stories below.

Secret diary of an expat teacher – week one

Secret diary of an expat teacher – week two