Keeping the teachers in

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34146, 6 May 1976, Page 16

Keeping the teachers in

Secondary school teachers are missing a grand opportunity to demonstrate their opposition to the Government’s cuts in education spending and yet to do no undue harm to the pupils on whose behalf they are concerned. The teachers have said that they will take no industrial action until May 24, which happens to be the day on which schools resume after the school holidays. Why wait? Why not go on strike while the schools are closed? Teachers who went on strike during the holidays could do so with little inconvenience to themselves or their employers. They need only inform the Department of Education that they will be on strike for a certain number of days, and ask to have their salaries reduced accordingly. Teachers who do not believe that a strike is warranted would continue to be paid while they continued to use the pupils’ holidays to prepare lessons for the winter term. Parents, taxpayers, and consumer organisations might object that the result would be inadequately prepared lessons for some classes next term, but some ill-prepared teaching would be better than rto teaching at all. Teachers who went on strike during the holidays would also have the consolation of knowing that their forgone pay would help the Department of Education to reduce its spending with the least possible harm to the pupils.