THE new amalgamated education union will need to lay down concrete alternatives to Ofsted inspections and current league table metrics, a packed National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference fringe meeting has heard.

The National Education Union (NEU) will be formed in September from the NUT and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) following merger ballots last month.

A meeting co-hosted by the Morning Star, the Unify campaign and Education for Tomorrow magazine was addressed by ATL general secretary Mary Bousted, who said the new union needed to provide “answers” as well as campaigns.

“We can’t say in the NEU that we don’t like the current data, we need to say what data we want and why,” she said on Saturday night.

“The idea we can put any form of data and any form of accountability back in the box is not going to happen.”

NUT general secretary Kevin Courtney warned of challenges ahead but also stressed common ground between the two unions.

“We shouldn’t think our job is just to outvote the ATL,” he said.

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko praised the education unions’ work in community organising and hailed the amalgamation as a big step forward for the labour movement.