Schools are preparing to make up to a fifth of their staff redundant in anticipation of huge budget cuts, it has emerged.
The number of senior teachers seeking advice on how to dismiss colleagues — and keep their own jobs — has hit a peak last seen in the late 1990s, a headteachers' association has warned.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), which represents 15,000 heads and deputies, said some of its members planned to make 15 or 20 redundancies out of a workforce of about 100.
I am sure that's not the norm by the way - but then I also well remember being a governor in Wandsworth in the late 1980s or early 1990s facing such a situation - and being heavily maligned by the local council for refusing to budget on that basis. Then it transpired that they admitted they'd made a mistake and 20% cuts were not needed.
But I have no idea what I as chair of finance and chair of governors would have done to implement such cuts.
And I have no idea how heads could do so now.
And let's be clear: none of this is necessary. We do not need to cut. This is the deliberate destruction of the social fabric of this country - so that the next step after the privatisation of the NHS can be the privatisation of education.
I sincerely hope every parent, every pupil, every teacher, every head and all support staff stage the ost massive protests wherever cuts occur. If they don't then they participate in the destruction.
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People need to see beyond the cuts agenda, severe though it is, to the core ideological shift it it facilitating – that’s ideology with a cash bottom line.
The privatisations and liberalisations agenda ensures that public procurement, that’s government spending at all levels, delivers public spending to transnational investors.
Public services and public procurement are heavily about labour costs. So that’s where the change comes.
Sackings, yes, but also a shift of workforce – conditions pushed down here, work sent overseas or cheaper workers brought in by transnational companies, creaming off the bulk of the difference between pay here and overseas.
Yet still the so-called ‘Left’, especially the elite Guardian ‘left’ with culturally protected jobs, refuses to consider the big labour picture – because its not ‘nice’.
Let’s just wring out hands. Another croissant, dear?