This is the 2nd part of multiple blogs where I will be discussing the now finished, 7-week in total, Go North East bus strike, and the ongoing affects that it has had on institutions working with young people and the progress they make following this unique situation. Again, I reiterate that views here are my own.
Part-one gives an overview of the situation, which can be read here – HAPPY X-21-MAS (STRIKE IS OVER) – The Mark Scheme
The Visions of Politicians are like Snow
I feel many a politician has a relationship with policy change as an aching 30-something has a relationship with snow. They have political visions that are akin for stars to align, like the 30-year-old longs for a perfect magical moment of snow – it will change everything and make the world a better place. However, if it snows outside the window of hope, you are unprepared, frustrated, and ill-equipped to deal with the inconvenience – all the while your ‘dream’ snow never comes, relegated at best to a mediocre slurry of ice and rain. All ideas seem to be around hypotheticals, simply aiming to fix the idea of an issue – not an actual issue when it arises.
I think of this as I attempt to square the circle of the governmental and DfE silence with regards the many disruptions faced by young people in their education this academic year – and the policy propositions, PR soundbites and often vitriol towards area of the sector. Last week we had The Sun run a clearly briefed out article about minimum service level discussions, with Schools Week providing further clarity from a discussion document they have seen, the Government wanting guaranteed schooling for approximately 74% of the school and further education landscape; vulnerable children, exam groups, children of key workers etc.
Actual Disruptions vs Hypothetical Disruptions
On the surface the justification may seem legitimate, and many of those who are not involved in the sector will glance at that and go “Yes, the student’s will be missing out”. I could at this point talk about the virtues of striking, how it is not an easy decision to withdraw labour, it is a last resort, and is often done as situations are not sustainable long-term to provide a quality of education that young people deserve. However, I’m not going to explore that avenue, instead I will start with the recent RAAC scandal as a juxtaposition. A secondary school in the region has been hugely affected by buildings using the aerated concrete – the situation again brought up by a local MP recently, indicating there has been learning loss and disruption for examination cohorts, the narrative including a story of pupil at the school asking a DfE representative about support and arrangements and being stonewalled (RAAC: St Leonard’s, Durham – Hansard – UK Parliament). How does this square with the propositions, the vitality of keeping schools open for vulnerable and exam groups of pupils, if this isn’t being pursued when affected for other means?
The bus strikes also provide evidence that the proposed justifications are not necessarily the actual reasons for the Government pursuing a policy of minimum service levels in education establishments. We have a dozen FE providers in a region of the country where the proposed conditions of providing face-to-face education for youngsters were likely not being met for 6/7 weeks, these are the same institutions that the proposed minimum service levels are set to be applied to. At no point did the Government attempt an intervention – or even simply discuss it in an education context.
I think back to what came out in the COVID enquiry with regards Gavin Williamson’s tenure as Secretary of State for Education, how he opposed masking in schools entirely on the grounds it was recommended by the unions, ‘not wanting to give an inch’ – a move approved by the Prime Minister (https://neu.org.uk/latest/press-releases/gavin-williamson-opposition-masks-schools).
This shows that recent political decision making in education is not being made not for any altruistic or principled reasons, there is precedence of it purely being spiteful, based on pettiness and point scoring. Under this lens you can start to square the circle as to why the government are not looking to support those affected by the RAAC scandal or these bus strikes – whilst policy is proposed under the the justification of supporting young people, that is not what it is about at all.It’s all discussion of how great their hypothetical ‘snow’ would be, but when the ‘unprepared snow’ comes, they are ill-equipped, unprepared and very clearly unwilling to ‘get involved’ to address the issues they claim to want to fix, when they actually happen.
FE for Political Point Scoring
Throughout this the silence from the DfE and the current Secretary of State for Education has also been noticeable. This is a secretary of state who discusses the virtues of technical and vocational education at great length – herself a former degree apprentice. Reports from the conservative party conference this year emphasise how in the agenda ‘skills’ appeared 93 times, ‘university’ only 37 times and ‘higher education’ 6 times (https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/10/06/skills-skills-and-degree-apprenticeships-a-review-of-conservative-party-conference/). We also have groups such as the New Conservatives pushing higher level apprenticeships and vocational education over universities for young people, the nuances of their report I discussed in an earlier blog – https://themarkscheme.co.uk/he-vs-apprenticeships/
The problem is again, these are all ‘hypotheticals’. They’re pushing policies that actually don’t make sense based on fallacies that have no grounding in reality. The New Conservatives report discusses the virtue of high-end technical qualifications to students who would not be eligible for them anyway. Furthermore, you can instil the virtues of vocational and technical education, degree apprenticeships etc, but where’s the scale? In principle I agree with all of this, I support technical and vocational education and would love a growth of degree apprenticeships for young people – but selling them as the solution when less than 5,000 of the the L4+ apprenticeships starts in the last year (amounting to approximately 50,000) are for school/college leavers, the average apprentice being 29 – is it really appropriate to be selling these as the solution to school leavers?
It’s hard to not develop a chip on your shoulder working in FE. Budgets have been tightened, limited funding introduced to support previous government GCSE Maths/English drives, with prior funding simply being ‘held for ransom’ instead. Politicians will use the sector as a political point scorer, as above, whilst simultaneously overseeing a huge aspect of underfunding. Attending a recent event partially curated by the Association of Colleges, they shared that the median college lecturer is almost £10,000 worse off in ‘real-terms’ today that when the Conservative government came into power. Pay is significantly lower than the secondary and sixth form sector, responsibility spines do not exist in the same way, such that I know of people who have what in a school would be a ‘head of department’ position on sub-£40,000 a year. If this is so important, why is it underfunded? Yes, you could argue that FE doesn’t have the same level of national bargaining power as the primary/secondary teaching sector – but the suggested pay rises between the elements of the sector in the table below is eye opening of the growing difference. This becomes even worse when you realise that across this period 60% of employers have failed to meet the AoC recommended pay awards (including this academic year’s 6.5%).
At the risk of sounding like a broken record talking about these things, again it paints this picture of hypothetical policy drives and political viewpoints that don’t actually relate to the reality of the world. Which again asks, are the shared supposed intentions the actual intentions of policy? Is this just playing politics to implement ideas for alternative means.
Playing Politics with Education
The expression ‘playing politics’ when thrown out by politicians with regards other politicians really gets on my nerves. All politics is playing politics – it’s not about actually getting things done.
Take the bus strikes, from what I have found the entire situation was discussed twice in Parliament. An early day motion from a number of labour party members (including local MPs) being critical of GoAhead and supporting the industrial action, and a comment from local MP and at the time junior minister in the Department for Transport, wrongly claiming an agreement had been reached back in October. Way beyond the education disruption, this was 7 weeks of ‘public transport’ being non-existent for a number of communities. No elected representative felt the need to speak up at all for those people?
We have opposition who will discuss the problem of ‘missed education’ when it can be used to directly attack the government over the RAAC scandal, an opportunity to discuss how their hypothetical solution (if Building Schools for the Future had expanded) would have been much better. It’s not about missed education, it’s not about those actually affected, as we wouldn’t have silence regarding the effects of the bus strike simultaneously. Points are raised instead as something to conveniently attack the Government over!
You have local MPs in opposition being highly vocal about the education effects on young people from the RAAC scandal, referencing exam years and lost learning. However, these same representatives are on record backing strike action of bus staff (not the issue) but unable/unwilling to bring up that this too is having a significant impact on exam years and leading to lost learning…perhaps unable to risk the nuance of appearing to be ‘attacking unions’?
On the other side, you also get a ‘red wall” MP unable to talk on behalf of their constituents as they are a junior government minister, so essentially have to neglect those who voted for them to be their representative, to toe the party line. Said junior minister was also so badly briefed/aware of things, as both a junior Ministry of Transport representative and an MP for one of the most affected communities, that they incorrectly shared an agreement had been reached in Parliament. Transport – Hansard – UK Parliament
We have a secretary of state for education who emphasises the merits and importance of vocational and technical education, but when a region with approximately a dozen FE establishments have had 6/7 weeks of disrupted learning, mostly affecting those who she claims would benefit from these programmes the most, we hear nothing.
The same education minister is aggressively pursuing minimum service levels to prevent a hypothetical student disruption, including at those same FE institutions…but was entirely silent about this significant student disruption which was happening/has happened.
This is all ‘playing politics’. All sides are either wrapped up in ‘the game’, discussing hypothetical ideas and ignoring actual ongoing situations, using situations as a vessel to attack others – nothing is about getting anything fixed.
I’m not naïve enough to think this hasn’t always been the case, I’m just tired and frustrated that after months of talk about how beautiful each sides ‘snow’ would be (BSF, minimum service levels, regional technical education), when a situation arises with a need for intervention, to actively act on improving/preventing disruption for actual young people beyond party political lines – we have silence from all sides. It’s not doing my aches very good at all!
What Next?
I obviously can’t change any of what I have talked about above. I have to focus on the job at hand. Students are back in-class, not without issues with attendance continuing. We’ve had students withdraw from programmes, others simply falling a long-way behind. My next post on this topic will be me doing some data crunching and reflecting on recent mock examinations – aiming to identify how the disruptions have affected the cohorts of learners involved. I will then be using this to identify what strategies I am going to try putting in place to support young people in the new year.