Perhaps wisely, given his picaresque personal history, Boris Johnson has never been one to base his politics on an appeal to morality. But he did so yesterday.
The Prime Minister declared that ‘keeping our schools closed a moment longer than absolutely necessary is socially intolerable, economically unsustainable and morally indefensible’.
If we agree that educating children is a good thing in itself, then indeed it is immoral to delay the reopening of schools.
Although he didn’t mention the National Education Union (NEU), there is a corollary to Mr Johnson’s point. To the extent that it is working to frustrate the Government’s plans for schools to reopen at the beginning of September, the country’s largest teaching union could be accused of immorally acting against the interests of children.
This might seem a shocking accusation. Aren’t those who become teachers people with a vocation for improving the lives and prospects of children?
Actually, it’s not paradoxical at all. We are talking here about teachers’ unions, and the purpose of such organisations is to further the welfare of teachers, not children.
The Prime Minister declared that ‘keeping our schools closed a moment longer than absolutely necessary is socially intolerable, economically unsustainable and morally indefensible’
Resistant
This is best illustrated by a remark attributed to the late Albert Shanker, who led the American Federation of Teachers for almost a quarter of a century: ‘When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.’
Shanker’s advocates argue this is a made-up quote, and what he actually said was: ‘I don’t represent children. I represent teachers.’
Whatever the case, it is the single most important point to bear in mind.
So when the joint general secretary of the NEU, Mary Bousted, talks about the health risks of a return to teaching in schools, she is talking about the health of teachers — the members who pay her salary of almost £220,000 — not the health of the children.
This was made embarrassingly clear in May when the Mail published details of a Zoom meeting of the NEU in which Bousted declared young pupils to be ‘mucky, who spread their germs, who touch everything, who cry, who wipe their snot on your trousers or your dress’.
The Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, was then attempting to get schools to reopen classes on a wide scale at the start of June (they have always, even during the lockdown, been open to the children of ‘essential workers’).
A remark attributed to the late Albert Shanker, who led the American Federation of Teachers for almost a quarter of a century: ‘When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children’
When the joint general secretary of the NEU, Mary Bousted, talks about the health risks of a return to teaching in schools, she is talking about the health of teachers — the members who pay her salary of almost £220,000 — not the health of the children
Dr Bousted faced him down humiliatingly — afterwards declaring it to be ‘a win’ against the Government.
And the teaching union did have a point in saying that the Government’s own rules on social distancing of two metres — especially indoors — would make normal classroom teaching most difficult, simply on grounds of inadequate space. More-over, getting school children to ‘socially distance’ is no one’s idea of an easy task.
But the more we learn about Covid-19, the clearer it is that children are at negligible risk from it.
The largest UK study in hospitals found that just 0.8 per cent of Covid patients were under the age of 19. And in Sweden, where schools were kept open to all pupils up to the age of 16 throughout the pandemic, only 0.05 per cent of their children contracted Covid-19.
Ah, say the unions, what we’re worried about is teachers contracting Covid from the ‘mucky children’.
Yet it seems that children are not just wonderfully resistant to the virus, they also don’t pass it on much.
Contrast
Studies of clusters of infection in family groups in China, established (based on the results of contact tracing) that none of the infections was introduced by children. A similar study of a cluster of Covid infection in France discovered that a child who tested positive did not pass on the virus to any of the more than 100 people with whom the youngster had contact while suffering the symptoms.
And yesterday, Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group (Sage), said that a forthcoming report by Public Health England should put parents’ minds at rest.
He added that the report had found ‘very little evidence of transmission in schools’ and that full reopening was ‘imperative’ for children’s social and mental wellbeing.
Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group (Sage), said that a forthcoming report by Public Health England should put parents’ minds at rest
Bousted, however, will maintain her ‘can’t do’ attitude.
The NEU has urged its members to fight headteachers preparing the reopening of schools, if they do not get the answers they want to a 25-page list of questions.
These questions include: ‘Will formal confirmation be given to staff that the overall working day will not be longer for any members of staff as a result?’, and ‘Will there be other arrangements to support staff wellbeing, such as stress and workload surveys and provision of individual support for staff experiencing anxiety or effects of trauma?’
It is a pitiful contrast to the can-do approach of the Armed Forces when they pushed through the construction at breakneck speed of the NHS Nightingale Hospitals, or indeed of the many thousands of supermarket workers over the past few months.
Enemy
But then neither the Army nor the supermarkets are in thrall to someone who regards the Government as an ideological enemy to be fought at all costs.
The NEU last year passed a motion arguing that ‘flying pickets’ be allowed to demonstrate outside school gates, and that the ‘closed shop’ should return, which would mean the dismissal of any teacher who refused to take up union membership.
In fact, a number of teachers are increasingly impatient with such political posturing. And we should not underestimate the extent to which good teachers have become fed up with the way the union fights to keep bad teachers in place.
I was recently contacted by Brian Walker MBE, the headteacher who transformed Derby’s West Park School from ‘underachieving’ in 1997 to become the top-performing school in the city, judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2013.
Mr Walker told me how he had achieved this by ‘taking a stand against restrictive practices: the union’s joint consultative committee was simply used to block anything which required their members to step up in any way’.
Walker changed all that, pointing out to me: ‘As a working class lad from Salford with a deep knowledge of trade unions, I wasn’t going to be intimidated.’
Let’s hope Mr Johnson and Mr Williamson are as tough as Brian Walker. If not, it will indeed be the children who will suffer.
Let’s hope Mr Johnson and Mr Williamson (pictured) are as tough as Brian Walker. If not, it will indeed be the children who will suffer
… And a lesson for the TV cricket pundits
Chris Woakes and Jos Buttler
Last Thursday, I was watching the 10 o’clock news — I think it was the ITV version — when the presenter told us that ‘England’s cricketers are facing a loss in the first Test against Pakistan’.
This amazed me. It was only two days into a match scheduled for five, and while England were not doing brilliantly at that stage, Test cricket is notoriously hard to call. As we now know, the match was won by England with a full day of play remaining. The defeatists were defeated.
This was especially satisfying for the two players whose dazzlingly skilful second innings partnership won the game in Manchester — Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes.
Buttler had been damned for his admittedly poor wicket-keeping earlier in the match, while the pundits had also decreed that Woakes’s batting was shot (the Warwickshire player had recently endured a run of low scores).
To see these modest but immensely determined men prove the doubters wrong made me — and I’m sure millions of England supporters — very happy.
The two themselves seemed almost overcome with emotion in the post-match interviews. This was hardly surprising: the strain and effort involved in top-level sport is almost unimaginable, even without the pressure of public expectation.
Perhaps that is something the armchair critics should bear in mind — as well as our broadcasters.