Lord Blunkett blasts teaching unions for ‘working against the interests of children’

David Blunkett, the former education secretary, today accused teaching unions of ‘working against the interests of children’ after they told members not to engage with the Government on its plans to reopen schools in June. 

Lord Blunkett, who served in the role from 1997 to 2001, said ministers and teachers needed to work together to figure out how to get children safely back into the classroom as soon as possible. 

He warned it is the least well-off in society who will be worst affected by the continued coronavirus shutdown of education institutions. 

He said reopening schools is a ‘matter of risk’ and that teachers will likely have to accept that in the same way that supermarket staff and care workers have. 

The Labour peer said he was ‘deeply critical’ of the National Education Union (NEU) which has told its members not to work with the Government on its planning for reopening schools from June 1.  

But Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU, today defended the union’s stance as she suggested it would not support reopening until it is persuaded there is only a low risk of children spreading the disease.  

Boris Johnson announced in his address to the nation on Sunday that he wanted primary schools to begin a phased reopening ‘at the earliest by June 1’. 

The phased plan would see reception, Year One and Year Six pupils return first with the rest joining them later. Secondary schools are not expected to reopen before the summer holidays.

The Government and unions are increasingly at odds with each other over the plan with the latter questioning how pupils can safely return in just a matter of weeks. 

Ms Bousted told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme that the NEU had not ‘ordered’ members not to engage with ministers but ‘we can advise them’. 

A number of European countries have now reopened their schools. Ms Bousted was told this morning that it does not sound as if the NEU is doing everything it can to get children back into classrooms. 

She replied: ‘Listen, if we could say that children can go back into class and there is a low or a reasonable risk that they will not go into school, will not infect each other, will not infect the staff in school and will not go home and infect their parents and their relatives then it would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if schools could reopen because that is what we all want to happen.’ 

Lord Blunkett savaged the NEU’s approach as he told the same programme minutes later that ‘we have all got to work together to get over fear as well as dealing with the genuine risk’. 

‘I am being deeply critical of the attitude,’ he said. ‘It is about how can we work together to make it work as safely – we can’t 100 per cent – as safely as possible. 

‘Anyone who works against that in my view is working against the interests of children.’ 

Lord Blunkett said other professions had accepted a level of risk in performing their jobs as he suggested teachers will have to do the same. 

He said: ‘In the end this is a matter of risk. We know, I am just stating this as a fact, we know that children transmit the disease less than adults, they are less likely to get it and therefore they are less likely to be a risk. 

‘When teachers and tens of thousands of really good teachers have been doing what they have been doing and they have been shopping and thanking the people on the counters in supermarkets and shops or they have got parents who are being cared for by those carers in those harms, they thank them and they know they are taking a risk. 

‘I know that in asking teachers from the 1st of June very carefully with the best possible advice, with risk assessment, with cleaning, with testing, to go back and start teaching those children, that has to be in the best interest of the most disadvantaged in our country who will not have tutors to be able to recover, who will not have parent who had higher education, who will rely entirely on us getting back to normal as quickly as possible.’