As a member of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association who has been fighting against the destruction of principal teacher posts for more than six years, I am glad to see in last week’s TES Scotland that the Educational Institute of Scotland has decided to join the fight.
However, I find the Rev Ewan Aitken’s reaction to its tardy activity more than “a bit disconcerting”. He wishes the EIS had raised the problem about school management with employers rather than policy-makers.
The SSTA has been speaking to employers but the employers have not been listening. Neither have they paid any attention to parents or pupils. We have found their determination to handicap the education system to be perverse and puzzling. The justification put forward for their changes amounts to no more than “trust me, I’m a director of education”.
Teachers are almost unanimous in their belief that these changes are a disaster in the making, but they are being written off as a few malcontents who are resistant to change.
The noise the Rev Aitken can hear is from a ticking time bomb. He should be sending for the bomb squad, not the Noise Abatement Society.
Graham Souter District Convener Aberdeenshire SSTA
