AS always, there is never a shortage of educational news, but the last year exposed the ineptitude of a government that misplaced nearly £400 million in funding for schools because they forgot there were two new council areas and it turns out that several schools were built with crumbling concrete.

It turns out that cutting funding for the building of new schools has consequences.

Tory austerity has had several other negative results. Unseen, of course, to policy-makers, but obvious to the historical materialists among us. Cheating on exams is up, school absences are up and mental health issues among young people are up.

If you remove opportunities and destroy life chances and implement policies that increase inequality — then lo and behold, people stop seeing the benefits of education. We all know now that meritocracy is a myth, so why bother trying?

2023 was a very significant year with considerable strike action by the National Education Union which brought about significant concessions from the government over pay.

From being denied a pay rise to achieving a 6.5 per cent uplift should be seen as a considerable victory for workers against an ideologically stymied Tory Party. I did, for a time, believe the government would dig its heels in  —  in the hope of having their “miners moment.”

The battle is a long way from over and 2024 might see renewed action after Gillian Keegan has instructed the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) to take into account the “impact of pay rises on schools’ budgets.”

This is a clear instruction to the body to keep wages down this year. The letter sent by the Education Secretary also mentions that last year the pay review bodies “recommended historically high pay awards” but makes no mention of the historic levels of wage stagnation or rising inflation.

Daniel Kebede, the new general secretary of the NEU, said: “Not only is the remit letter late, but it is also completely inadequate.

“The government is again attempting to constrain the STRB by forcing it to work within the existing inadequate funding envelope.” It is likely now that the NEU and hopefully the other education unions will move towards balloting for further action this year.

The eventual aim should of course be a return to collective bargaining rather than rely on “independent” bodies of “experts” appointed by the government stacked with HR professionals, Treasury economists and chiefs of academy chains. Not a teacher in sight nor any representatives from the education unions.

Unions will of course face the added challenge this time around of the Minimum Service Levels Bill, described by the general secretary of the head teacher’s union NAHT as “a purely ideological fight from the government, aimed at removing workers’ fundamental rights.” It is clear now that we need unity between unions to defy this authoritarian attack on workers’ rights.

Ofsted is once again in the news. Sadly, it took the tragic death of head teacher Ruth Perry this time last year to bring to the public’s attention the pernicious influence of the inspectorate.

A subsequent coroner’s inquiry noted that school inspections were likely to lead to even more deaths in the future and that “action should be taken to prevent future deaths.”

In response, Ofsted, a year later, paused inspections so that inspectors could undertake mental health awareness training.

This training is online and non-compulsory for inspectors — and it turns out that due to technical issues, it will just be a video.

This, of course, does not go anywhere near far enough and any future deaths due to the stress of Ofsted should be seen for what they are. Social murder. Entirely preventable by the state. It can be added to the long list of crimes this government is culpable for, along with austerity and Grenfell.

As I have said before, what is needed is the complete abolition of Ofsted. Not reform but revolution. There is no evidence that Ofsted has contributed to raising educational standards and its judgements have been shown to discriminate against schools in deprived areas.

Ofsted’s constant monitoring pressures teachers to focus on performative tasks for inspections rather than on delivering quality education.

The current system has become so toxic that reform is no longer an option. It needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up.

Rightly, the National Education Union is campaigning to replace Ofsted with an alternative inspection system involving more collaboration and peer support. Any replacement system should aim to support teacher professionalism and treat pupils equally regardless of social class background.

This month the latest issue of Education for Tomorrow hit the virtual shelves taking a look at the rise of authoritarianism in our education system.

There is a current trend in education, among certain sections at least, for silent classrooms, silent corridors and zero tolerance.

With the possibility of an incoming Labour government, it has been noted that some are backtracking on this, clearly fearing that a change of government will also mean a shift in policy. Away from a Govian reliance on recall and perhaps towards a more progressive model.

The Labour Party has in fact been doing a bit of work on this. Its website talks about developing “life skills, like communication, teamwork” — a far cry from the banking model of education currently in vogue which sees pupils as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. There are hints, though, that as usual the Labour Party will ensure that the status quo is maintained.

The shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson in a recent speech made no mention of the work of our trade unions to ensure that schools were safe during the pandemic or that workers are represented fairly day to day in the face of increasing repression, but instead praised Michael Gove for bringing “a fresh eye, high expectations, new focus.” This is a man universally hated by the teachers and education workers he disparagingly called “the Blob.”

The Labour Party has backtracked on abolishing charitable status for private schools and backtracked on the policy of abolishing tuition fees. There is a lot of talk about breaking down barriers, but nothing about ensuring a rebalance of wealth and power in society. At Sir Keir’s request, they have wheeled out the old Blairite Baron Blunkett to write a report on learning and skills.

There are some positive highlights from this report, for example, the “value of learning for learning’s sake and protect the arts, social sciences and humanities courses.” This is posed as being valuable to “maintain a civilised culture of which we can be proud.” What exactly is civilised about a culture built around exploitation and violence I’m not sure, but then what do I know, I’m not a baron.

Robert Poole is a secondary teacher, NEU rep and editor of Education for Tomorrow. The latest digital edition is available from Manifesto Press (www.manifestopress.coop) for £1.50.