Motion: Oppose the Deskilling of Teaching in Renfrewshire

Oppose the Deskilling of Teaching in Renfrewshire

Lodged by Ms Wendy Alexander Standard Motion 23 supporters

The motion

That the Parliament condemns Renfrewshire Council for having cut teacher numbers by 244 since the current leadership came to power in 2007, proportionately more than any other local authority in Scotland; notes Renfrewshire’s plans to axe the number of classroom assistants by 70 in the coming financial year; further condemns the authority’s plans to cut, from August 2011, the teaching time in every Renfrewshire Primary School by 10% and to axe the number of primary teachers by more than 60 and replace them with 120 part-time sessional workers; notes that the sessional workers will be paid from funding from the European Social Fund of £14 per hour inclusive of on-costs compared with £29.58 per hour for a qualified teacher; understands that this will mean that all Renfrewshire primary pupils will, in future, be given lessons by part-time non-teachers for one tenth of the school week; deplores what it considers to be the lack of consultation with parents, teachers or teaching unions; notes the absence of both a published training programme for the sessional workers and any published safeguards for teaching quality, discipline or behaviour when they take charge later this year; calls on Renfrewshire Council's education board to reject what are believed to be misguided plans when it meets on 13 January 2011, and supports all those parents and others who are campaigning locally against what it sees as a schooling-on-the-cheap plan.

Supporters (23)