Union slams minister over ‘growing gulf ’ with teachers

THERE is a growing gulf between the Education Minister and the reality being faced by schools during the pandemic, a leading educator has said.

Graham Gault, president of the National Association of Head Teachers in Northern Ireland, said the next couple of months “will be extremely hard” for schools after Peter Weir’s belated U-turn on reopening.

He described the lack of direct communication from the Department of Education as “degrading, demoralising and deeply insulting”.

In a letter to head teachers, Mr Gault wrote: “We will get through the next couple of months, doing all that we can for our children and for each other, despite the tone-deaf context that we function within and the significant inequities across our system, and we will get our schools to the springtime, with the hope that Covid-19 will be predominately behind us and we can face down the real issues that lie behind our broken and fragmented education system.”

In damning criticism of the minister’s late decision to pause reopening, Mr Gault said “that our profession is sick and tired of the politicking of education”.

He wrote: “The refusal to facilitate contingency planning for school leaders by stubbornly insisting on a singular direction of travel has resulted in yet another last-minute hiatus for principals.

“Had the minister advised school leaders that this was a possibility, when schools were asking about January arrangements before Christmas, contingency arrangements for this eventuality could have been made.

“Whilst we can acknowledge that the health advice to the minister had changed, it is just so sad that you are again left to piece this together.”

He said that only yesterday morning unions had stressed to Mr Weir and his department “yet again, that our profession must be given the basic courtesy of dialogue before announcements are made through the media”.

“The current patterns of communication are degrading, demoralising and deeply insulting to the integrity and child-focused ethos under which we all work.

The Department of Education acknowledges that this must be improved. Simply, it must be.

“There is an increasingly concerning gulf between the minister and his department and the reality that you are facing on the ground every day.”