TEACHERS’ unions have expressed concerns over post-16 education reforms proposed by Powys County Council, which they say have ‘inherent dangers’.
Both the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and NASUWT have criticised Powys’ proposals to centralise the running of post-16 education under one body.
Neil Butler, Powys negotiating secretary for the NASUWT, said: “We are heading into unknown territory. These proposals pass responsibility for post-16 education to a central body that is unlikely to include representatives from schools.
“There will be a reduction in courses to ensure that classes are economic and our fear of large numbers of sixth formers being bussed across the county will come to pass.
“In schools at present popular post-16 options subsidise smaller classes so that a wide choice can be maintained for students in their own school.
“All that this commissioning body will see is cold, hard numbers and there will be the inevitable shutting down of less popular options.
“The reduction in courses will lead to job losses and wide-scale redundancies in schools. This will have an appalling affect on morale and a knock-on affect for standards. Job reductions have to be carefully managed if they are not to harm schools but with the responsibility passed to a faceless bureaucracy where will the accountability lie for the damage that will be done to our schools.”
Graham Haslock, joint divisional secretary of the NUT, said that while they welcomed the decision to keep all of the schools open, they feel that the ‘radical’ proposals at post-16 level have ‘inherent dangers’.
“The problem, and it is a serious one, is that they have gone back to the idea of a commissioning body which will have significant powers which don’t exist at the moment.
“They have had to be radical in their solution in order to demonstrate to the Welsh Government that it is worth having money.”
He said that the only way savings could be made through the new proposals are through teachers’ job losses, something which they would ‘strongly resist’.
Graham also feels that these connections have little resemblance to what has been discussed at informal consultations.
“Powys are now saying that they will not consult and the NUT are looking to see if this is legal.
“They have come up with a proposal which has very little connection with the original plan that went to informal consultation. That model was never really on the table when the informal consultation took place.
“We think the consultation process so far has been disingenuous. They have come up with this completely new idea at the death.”