Thousands of schoolchildren in England and Wales are suffering disruption as teachers strike over pay, pensions and conditions.
Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) are taking part in the action, leaving many schools closed to some or all pupils.
Union leaders said the national walkout was a "last resort".
The Department for Education (DfE) said the NUT was disrupting parents' lives and holding back children's education.
The union said the strike action on Wednesday was covered by two ballots held in May 2011 and June 2012.
In total, 92% of members voted in favour of strike action, with a turnout of 40%. The NUT has 326,930 members in England and Wales.
Ongoing disputeThe NUT has been embroiled in its current dispute with the government for more than two years, and staged a series of regional strikes, together with the NASUWT teaching union, last year.
End Quote David Laws Schools MinisterI do not understand why the NUT are taking this industrial action in the middle of talks"
A proposed one-day national walkout in November by the two unions was called off in the wake of talks with the government and the NASUWT has decided not to take part in this latest round of strike action because of the ongoing talks.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower said that a "change of policy" was needed to address the issue.
Ms Blower said: "Certainly the message we are getting is that the action is well-supported. On the back of the 60-hour week workload diary survey teachers are just feeling overwhelmed."
She said rallies and marches are taking place all over the country and that "people will be out and about".
'No basis for strike'But Schools Minister David Laws told the BBC that there was no basis for the strike.
He said: "I do not understand why the NUT are taking this industrial action in the middle of talks."
Mr Laws said he was currently in talks with seven trade unions, but only the NUT had chosen to strike.
He admitted that he was "concerned" about the amount of hours teachers were working per week, and he said that he wanted to try to reduce this by cutting the amount of bureaucracy and red tape teachers had to face.
NUT deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney said: "Striking is our last resort.
"We have been trying to persuade [Education Secretary] Michael Gove to change his mind, he is unwilling. Michael Gove's policies are exhausting and demoralising teachers and that's very bad and disruptive for education.
"Thousands of good people are leaving the profession, we are building up to a teacher shortage and our children deserve energetic and enthusiastic teachers not demoralised and exhausted ones."
Mr Courtney said the union wanted Mr Gove to change his policies on school accountability, which the NUT said was leading to "enormous" workloads for teachers, performance-related pay and pensions.
Gove's letterOn Tuesday, Mr Gove wrote to seven union bosses, setting out the progress he believed had been made in an ongoing programme of talks between the DfE and these teaching unions.
In the letter, he said he wanted to underline his commitment to the talks process.
"I have been following the progress of the weekly talks closely and am encouraged by reports from the meetings so far," Mr Gove wrote.
"I hope you also feel that we are making good progress."
Condemning Wednesday's industrial action, a DfE official said: "Parents will struggle to understand why the NUT is pressing ahead with strikes over the government's measures to let heads pay good teachers more.
"They called for talks to avoid industrial action, we agreed to their request, and talks have been taking place weekly.
"Despite this constructive engagement with their concerns, the NUT is taking action that will disrupt parents' lives, hold back children's education and damage the reputation of the profession."
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Classes disrupted as teachers strike
Dengan url
http://gayabugarsehat.blogspot.com/2014/03/classes-disrupted-as-teachers-strike.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Classes disrupted as teachers strike
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Classes disrupted as teachers strike
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar