Schools sick plan slammed

Teaching unions have voiced anger at government proposals to require schools to publish teacher sickness absence rates per school, to help parents make “informed choices”. The plans are set out in the Department of Education Business Plan 2011-2015.

Although the data will be published on a “whole school” basis, working out the identities of the teachers concerned is often likely to be straightforward. Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union said, “To focus on sickness absence in this way merely gives the green light to employers to harass and pressurise sick teachers back into work or force them out of the profession”.

The proposal drives a coach and horses through the previous administration’s health, work and well-being strategy, which was beginning to recognise the importance of examining underlying structural causes of occupational illness.

Some of these causes can be seen in the results of NASUWT’s 2008 Safe to teach survey of teachers which found that two-thirds of respondents had suffered some form of bullying or harassment at work in the preceding two years. It also revealed that in around half of all cases where bullying incidents were reported to management no action was taken, and that more than two-thirds were affected by work-related stress.

According to Keates, the proposals demonstrate the coalition government’s “deep-rooted contempt” for teachers.