Striking is no way to improve our schools

IS the answer to the crisis in our schools, where pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills are slipping, really for teachers to strike for more pay?

The Educational Institute for Scotland union certainly thinks so. It is talking up statistics that show some pupils are doing well, talking down those which show many are not, and blaming – surprise, surprise – Westminster cuts for the education crisis. And all this as it ballots for the first strikes in almost 30 years.

The Mail has the deepest respect and admiration for the vast majority of teachers who give their all to the profession. Theirs is a true calling and the debt the country and generations of youngsters owe them is huge.

We have sympathy, too, with their frustration at the political tinkering that makes their task so difficult. The warning signs that the Curriculum for Excellence was a shambles were wilfully ignored by a dogmatic SNP which will not countenance questioning – let alone criticism – of its plans.

But with the sacking by Nicola Sturgeon of the high-handed Mike Russell, she and her new Education Secretary, Angela Constance, have a tremendous opportunity to transform the life chances of our schoolchildren. The task is daunting and there must first be an acceptance that this is entirely Holyrood’s problem: Education is devolved.

Teachers have a key role to play. They are at the sharp end and their valid concerns must not be ignored. But they i n turn must show f l exibility and willingness to embrace change.

Schools in some of the most deprived areas of London now deliver astonishing exam results because outmoded talk of children being held back by their home circumstances has been swept away along with rigid old work practices designed to favour teachers, not pupils.

The teaching unions have a role, too, in transforming Scottish education for the better. And they must not be the naysayers, forever entrenched in the confrontation of the militant 1970s.