There is a lot of symbolism between the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) crisis that has hit the news recently and the current general state of public services. The image of schools, hospitals, prisons, and court chambers physically falling to bits is an apt accompaniment to a public sector workforce that is underpaid, undervalued, overworked and very close to the end of its tether. There is more to it than just this though. I am reminded of the hilarious local poet Les Barker who sadly passed away in 2023. His poem ‘The Inflatable Boy,’ about a land made up of inflatable schools, teachers, pupils, buildings, classrooms and lessons seems apposite. The poem centres on a naughty inflatable boy who having secretly smuggled an inflatable pin into his inflatable school begins to mischievously deflate everything around him. The final stanza outlines the scene of his reprimand with the inflatable headteacher, who had been patched up with a puncture repair kit, saying in a predictable teacher cliché: ‘You’ve let the teachers down, you’ve let the school down, and now you’ve let yourself down’ etc.
I am not a construction engineer nor an expert in resistant materials for building design. Nevertheless, the notion that concrete can be ‘aerated’ does not seem very far from Les Barker’s imaginary ramblings about inflatable buildings. The naughty child with a pin, in the case of the current RAAC crisis, is an applicable metaphor for the passage of time when short-term cost-saving decisions are made. However, all building materials have a shelf-life and built into the contracts for maintenance and upkeep of buildings (not to mention the insurance for them) are schedules for their eventual replacement. Once again, so it seems, the government appears to have been asleep at the wheel while the RAAC crisis has unravelled and the full extent of the problem is only now being uncovered. This is despite the many warnings, including the partial collapse of a school building roof in Gravesend, Kent made out of RAAC in 2018.
So I am afraid it is not in this case the passage of time that has let us down, but those in charge. I do not know much about Gillian Keegan the recently appointed Secretary of State for Education in England. Knowing what it is like to step into a high-pressure role as a relative newcomer, however, I sympathise with her need for affirmation especially in the face of heavy criticism for a situation she does not feel responsible for. To be expressing this need so publicly (admittedly while the cameras were not officially still broadcasting) speaks of desperation and despair.
The expletives uttered during this off the cuff moment of candour belie the professionalism of her act. As the Secretary of State, at the apex of the teaching and education-related professions, she has to set an example of the utmost professionalism. What happened to the Teachers’ Standards (2011) that were part of the Govian reforms? Teachers must ‘maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour’ and ‘observe proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position’. They must also not undermine ‘fundamental British values’ of which one is tolerance and mutual respect. I know that the Secretary of State is not technically a teacher – in fact it is of profound disappointment to me that so few secretaries of state for Education in recent times have been qualified teachers – but if the head of the Education system cannot exemplify the attributes its teachers are required to show then what exactly is the point of leadership? I have on occasions destroyed trainee teachers’ aspirations to join the profession because of egregious, even if momentary, professional indiscretions not dissimilar to the Secretary of State’s. Had a trainee uttered such expletives on camera and been broadcast on national TV doing so, disciplinary action with severe consequences would ensue inevitably. Schools hosting the trainee would also inevitably terminate the placement so as to assuage the parental, pupil and colleague backlash and loss of confidence.
The culture of appalling conduct among governing officials is coming to light in so many ways now (not least the public COVID-19 Enquiry). Education professionals have become used to the general playbook of the current administration. For many years members of this government have disdainfully dismissed criticisms and warnings about their reform programme from hard working educational professionals as the mutterings of a mithering ‘blob’. Such dismissals only demonstrate their inability to learn and serve to show that the absence of all the prerequisites of learning – humility, dialogue, effort, compromise – will only end up in the same mistakes being made time and time again. It is no wonder this government have been caught so many times asleep at the wheel (in relation to climate change; sickness absence at work; food prices; gender and safeguarding in schools). Les Barker had it right in his wonderful antidote to tin-eared zealotry – the Church of the Wholly Undecided. Can we please have some even-handed professionalism back? Can we please reemphasise the importance of learning and the humility that must go with that from people in our commanding heights. And can we listen to experts again and get rid please of the bubbles in our concrete?