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Education unions in the United Kingdom have welcomed the announcement by the Secretary of State for Education that the Education for All Bill, planning to force all schools in ‘underperforming’ local authority areas to become academies, has been dropped.

NASUWT: Huge uncertainty about education reforms

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) welcomed the move. “The Secretary of State Justine Greening has again shown a determination to not blithely follow the path marked out by her predecessors and to, instead, put her own stamp onto the future policy direction for education, for good or ill,” said Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary.

Huge uncertainty and questions still surround the scope and pace of Government reforms, including concerns about the future funding for schools and the role of local authorities in the provision of education, she explained.

Ministers must take stock of the current situation and avoid compounding “the very serious challenges, including in respect of teacher supply, which have been the product of the last six years of reform”, she said.

NUT: Education policy in complete disarray

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said it was clear that Government education policy is “in complete disarray … and children and young people bear the brunt of this chaos”, according to NUT General Secretary Kevin Courtney.

After previous Education Secretaries’ “embarrassing back-pedals over the Education for All Bill”, widespread criticism had led the Government to finally decide to abandon any attempt to revise its plans for total academisation, he said.

Greening must start listening to the profession to find a way forward that ensures the best education outcomes for all children, Courtney said.

ATL: Victory for common sense

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) also reacted to the Government’s decision. The ATL Director of Economic Strategy and Negotiations Adrian Prandle said his trade union “is relieved that the Government has decided to abandon plans to force schools to become academies”.

This “victory for common sense” and “U-turn”, he noted, reflects the lack of evidence that academies guarantee children a better education or improve education outcomes, and the difficulty the Department for Education already has in ensuring that there is no financial impropriety in academies.

The Government must now focus on the real challenges in education - recruiting and retaining enough qualified teachers, providing sufficient school places, and reducing teachers' workloads, Prandle said. It must ensure any changes to school funding protect disadvantaged children and take into account the real-terms funding cuts schools have to cope with, he insisted.