Teachers’ strike: ‘Majority’ of schools in England and Wales will open, says Keegan | education

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The ‘majority’ of schools in England and Wales will remain open, the Education Secretary has claimed, with more than 100,000 teachers joining the picket line for the first time in six years.

Some schools may open with restrictions, while others are open to all, Gillian Keegan said Wednesday, but she expressed disappointment that none were closed at all.

Faculty members are taking part in a day of coordinated strikes involving up to half a million civil servants, frontier force employees and train drivers.

The UK’s largest teachers’ union, NEU, predicted 85% of schools would be affected, with one survey suggesting as many as one in seven schools would close to all students, rising to a quarter in London.

When asked on Wednesday how many schools would remain open, Keegan struggled to estimate how many pupils his education would not be disrupted.

She told Sky News: “We don’t know that, we’ll know later today. We did a survey that a lot of headteachers answered… The majority of schools will remain open. Some will open with restrictions, others will open to everyone. But we are very disappointed that none of them about to finish “.

Teachers are not required to tell their schools in advance if they are going to strike, leaving many parents on edge for severe obstruction.

Keegan said she was surprised to learn that teachers were not required to disclose in advance whether they were participating in the industrial strike on Wednesday. It said the legal position would remain “under review”.

“It came as a surprise to some of us that this was in fact the law. I wrote to everyone to urge them to be constructive, to tip their heads, and I’m sure teachers would,” she told the Radio Times.

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There are discussions about minimum levels of service, minimum levels of security, about hospitals about railways – education is part of that bill too.

“We hope we don’t use that, and we hope we make sure that we continue to have constructive discussions and relationships, but those things will always be kept under review.”

Keegan met with four education unions earlier this week, but talks to stop the strike broke down on Wednesday. The new union has said it is keen to reopen negotiations to avoid strikes planned for later this month and March, although there appears to be little hope of progress, with the Treasury Department actually blocking progress.

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