THE government “got education badly wrong” during the pandemic, but international comparisons show that it didn’t “need to be like this,” National Education Union (NEU) leaders said today. 

Joint general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Dr Mary Bousted addressed the final day of the union’s conference. 

In their joint speech, Mr Courtney said: “What Covid-19 has exposed is the reality that schools and colleges are far more than institutions where children are educated. 

“One of the most brutal effects of austerity is that so much of the public realm which children and their families relied upon has disappeared: youth centres closed, Sure Start centres closed, libraries closed and benefits cut or arbitrarily terminated. 

“As these public services have been decimated, schools and colleges have stepped into the breach: feeding children and clothing them, becoming counsellors, helping parents who can’t fill in their benefit forms.”

Dr Bousted said that teachers, leaders and support staff have gone beyond the extra mile during the pandemic, “stepping into the wasteland of public decimated by austerity,” and “rolled up their sleeves and worked to protect the most vulnerable.”

She warned that with the return to schools, the “new normal” had become the “bad old days” with teachers struggling under exhausting practices like Ofsted inspections. 

“How is it that the government could have got this pandemic so badly wrong when it came to education?

“How is it that the Department for Education resorted to multiple versions of its guidance, leaving leaders desperately trying to decipher what had changed between one version and the next? 

“We get wearily resigned to the incompetence of our government. But international comparisons tell us something new. It doesn’t need to be like this. And in other high-performing nations, it is not like this.”

Mr Courtney added: “So [the NEU] are going to try do something about it. We are going to use our new strength, our new technology to fight for teacher professionalism and control. 

“We are going to take the motion on workload, passed at this conference, and give our reps the tools to bargain for good work in schools and colleges, [multi-academy trusts] MATs and local authorities. Work that empowers teachers, educates their pupils and raises standards of education.”

The conference also passed motions on union recognition and funding for services such as nurseries, special education needs and mental health.