Gove speaks with forked tonge

Things are not exactly secure for RE in English schools under the Coalition GOVErnment. The strange thing is that its members seriously seem to think that they are protecting it!  Up and down the land MPs have been lobbied by thousands of people who are worried that this administration is determined to dump RE. Down here in Kent we have 14 MPs and, as Chair of Kent SACRE, I have written to the lot. Twice.

The standard way that MPs deal with such queries (after all, they are not necessarily experts in the field) is either to deflect the question with eyewash or to forward it to the relevant minister and then reply with a copy of teh reply. In Kent most of our MPs are pretty hopeless in dealing with the RE question, for example neither Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) nor Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) have bothered to reply. Others, like Roger Gale (Thanet North) act immediately by passing the matter to the minister or secretary of state and then simply believe what they are told. Interestingly, the new MP for Thanet South, Laura Sandys, was one who did not bother to reply. Damien Green (Ashford) doesn't care about RE and isn;t willing to move a muscle but at least he replies.

Some of our MPs, on the other hand, are genuinely concerned and prepared to take action. Juilan Brazier (Canterbury) is one, Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) is another. These men are robust in their support. So is Charlie Elphicke (Dover), who not only took the matter up with Mr Gove but went out of his way to tackle him about it. Helen Grant (Maidstone) promises support but leaves a sense of doubt about giving it.

There is an Early Day Motion to be taken before the end of this parliamentary session, which calls for RE to be included in the new Humanities E Bacc. The government line is that it is not necessary because iot is a compulsory subject. However the demonstrable reality is that, if it is removed from the GCSE agenda - as would happen if it was not in the Bacc - then it would effectively vanish from many schools. 'Compulsory' it may be but nobody is policing it and many schools have quietly dropped it - and nobody in government is prepared to lift a finger to have it reinstated.

So the government and its Secretary of State speak with forked tongues; the very alleged protection they say they are giving to RE is proving the be the means of allowing schools to drop it from their curricula.

And already we are seeing the impact; no GCSE > no A-Level course > fewer applicants for Religious Studies degrees > end of some university courses > fewer trainee RE teachers > less RE in schools.

Gove and the government know this. It's a pity they don't tell the truth.

Teacher Registration - a threat to democracy?

Almost the first thing that Michael Gove did when he emerged from the shadows to become Education Secretary was to announce the abolition of the General Teaching Council (GTC) for England. Sure a lot of teachers saw little return for their £33 annual subscription and Gove tapped into this sentiment by suggesting that the Council "acts as a further layer of bureaucracy while taking money away from teachers."

However, what seemed to be behind this was the notion that, in its roles of disciplining naughty teachers, the GTC had not been as robust as Mr Gove would have liked. So, rather than ensure that it was suitably robust in its decisions, he chose to abolish it, announcing that "I want there to be stronger and clearer arrangements in relation to teacher misconduct and I am not convinced the GTCE is the right organisation to take these forward." Presumably his Welsh counterpart did not feel the same as there seems little threat to the GTCW.

The teaching profession had waited many years and fought many battles - mostly with whichever union wanted domination - before ending up with a professional body. For years we had claimed we were a profession and now we had what other professions had; a regulatory and registering body. For all its faults.

It seems that Mr Gove wants teacher registration to continue and wants the (tough) regulatory function to continue so, while the GTC goes to law to look for a solution that will protect it, the Secretary of State proposes that these functions are taken into the Department for Education. And this will leave the legislature (parliament) also being the executive, carrying out the legislation through maintaining the teacher registration function and, it seems, being the judiciary, dispensing justice and clemency.

Is it not a tenet of democracy - and has it not been since Ancient Greece - that the three functions of  legislature, executive and judiciary should be kept separate?

Not in Mr Gove's democratic world it seems!