YOUR otherwise well-balanced editorial (“We must have a clear aim for education”, The Herald, June 20), takes a sideways swipe at teaching unions with an accusation that we have been more willing to rase objections than seek solutions. I would contest that view.
As a member of the Education Recovery Group, the EIS, Scotland’s largest education union, has sought to engage constructively with partners, including national and local government, about how we can best deliver for Scotland’s students. It was an EIS survey of more than 26,000 teachers which first highlighted the negative impact of lockdown on our most disadvantaged pupils and the scale of the digital divide; it was the EIS which raised the scandal of unemployed newly-qualified teachers (NQTs) when our schools need more teachers; it was the EIS which called for an equity audit and for resources to be made available to mentor and tutor individual students hit hardest by deprivation; at a local level it has been the EIS which has driven the risk assessments necessary to make our schools safe places, for pupils and staff, when they re-open come August.
And over this past week, as Scottish politics returned to its “normal” bickering worst, it has been the EIS which has called for a national effort to ensure that the money is found to deliver the teachers and resources needed for a sustained education recovery effort – an effort in which both the EIS and its members are keen to play a role.
Larry Flanagan, General Secretary, Educational institute of Scotland, Edinburgh EH2.
AM I missing something? How is "blended learning" going to benefit the hard-working teaching profession? So far as I can see, it will mean doubling their workload and halving the amount of education the children will receive – is this what our once-lauded education system has come to?
My mother was teaching in the 1940s and 50s in the east end of Glasgow – large classes of 40-50, without the aid of a classroom assistant and extra special needs funding. It was her proud claim that not one of her children left without being able to read and write. Coincidentally, it seemed that the majority of them wanted to learn, teachers and parents were respected and discipline was applied rigorously, despite the widespread poverty.
I find it difficult to understand why, in our modern system of free education, more and more children seem to prefer to roam the streets, rather than apply themselves to learning the basic 3Rs. Interestingly, the children of immigrants seem to appreciate this more than our home-grown lot.I wonder why this would be?
Carol MacDonald, Troon.
POLITICIANS and high-ranking civil servants behind the decision for "blended" schooling, aka part-time school, are largely cushioned from the consequences of their decisions: they don't have to choose between working and educating their children at home because they have jobs where they can be flexible about hours, can afford for their partners not to work full-time, can afford private tutors or to send their children to private schools which if they are not offering full-time schooling in August will still be offering much more than state schools.
But it isn't just the children of politicians and high-ranking civil servants who are protected from the consequences of their decisions about lockdown. They, together with the scientists who are advising them, are not facing redundancy. Very many people employed in hospitality, retail and many other businesses in the private sector will lose their livelihoods as this protracted lockdown pans out; these senior figures in the public sector won't.
Linda Holt (Independent Councillor for the East Neuk), Anstruther.
WHEN I retired from teaching almost 20 years ago it was obvious that a significant proportion of my colleagues did not enjoy the best of health. Sadly, I gather that is still the case in the teaching profession and I wonder how willing those pressing the First Minister to instantly return to pre-Covid-style education would be to accept responsibility for the teacher deaths and serious illness that might follow such a policy?
Teachers are not the most popular people on the planet, but they are not easily replaceable either. The current crisis could harm the education of our youth in more than one way.
Ronald Cameron (formerly PT History, Tain Royal Academy), Fort William.
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