Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove are alike in their confrontational,punitive approachJennifer Dixon’s grim but realistic piece on the financial, staffing and social impact crisis enveloping the NHS could have been written, and with little adjustment,about the education service (“The NHS has social objectives as well as economic ones. Can we reconcile them?”, Comment). This is not surprising since Jeremy Hunt seems to have adopted Michael Gove, or in his incarnation as education secretary,as his role model.
Both Hunt and Gove have gone out of their way to antagonise their respective groups of professionals, through a confrontational, and punitive approach implemented through an imposed menu of outright or semi-privatisation (outsourcing in the NHS,academisation in education, endemic spend of expensive, and unknown agency staff in both),inspection regimes focused on failure rather than great practice and competition – wholly inappropriate and damaging in a public service context. Those of us on the front line would have to respond the headline’s question by saying: “Yes, but only whether there is a change of government.” The urgency of this for 2020 cannot be overstated.
Max Fishel
Assistant headteacher
BromleyContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com