From left: Dil Bola (Derby NUT President & EMAG Convenor) Bill Greenshields, Samidha Garg (NUT Race Equality),

Ian Jennison (Derby NUT Div Sec), John Holmes (Derbys & Notts National Executive member), with EMAG members.

At a very well attended EMAG members’ meeting of Derby City Association, Samidha Garg, National NUT Principal Officer for Race Equality, laid out the facts about what is happening to EMAG race equality funding.

 

I was very pleased to also be invited to the meeting – and to see a photograph taken 11 years ago of the night I turned up as Div Sec with over 60 Derby EMAG teachers, “mob handed”, to a Derby City Council meeting to oppose moves to delegate the EMAG budget to schools. We were not made very welcome that night – but, with sustained joint union activity and support from the community, we won the dispute… on that occasion…. the result of a very lively and spirited joint union campaign.

 

Since that time, however, the budget has been delegated, and while need increases – with a steep increase in need as a result of the new pupil arrivals from Eastern Europe – funding decreases… and what there is “disappears” into general school funding. And there has been a 70% decline in the number of qualified teachers in the Derby service, and an increase in Teaching Assistants. Samidha was very clear that teachers welcome and respect Teaching Assistants as fellow professionals carrying out essential roles… but those roles are NOT substitutes for qualified teachers, and should not be used as such.

 

Samidha, speaking between the courses of an excellent meal at a Derby Halal restaurant, laid out our union policy for sustained and specific funding, centrally administered, delivered to meet identifiable need. The Union is arguing that the Government should thoroughly investigate the necessary cost of race equality funding in education, rather than just plucking a figure out of the air, and then tailoring the provision to meet the budget. We are also arguing that there should be additional funding to meet unforeseen circumstances – such as the large-scale immigration of people from Eastern Europe.

 

Our Union survey (see www.teachers.org.uk) carried out with NALDIC  - the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum – shows an unacceptable picture across the country. EMAG has been robbed! While, as in Derby, Headteachers and teachers identify the need as growing, budgets are falling. Devolved/delegated budgets are out of the LA control, and there is clear evidence that EMAG funding is being used for a range of purposes other than that for which it was intended. EMAG teachers report being used for whole class mainstream teacher work, or even to “cover” PPA time of other teachers! Most LA had no effective system of monitoring how the money was being spent.

 

Even more shocking is the fact that 88% of Local Authorities reported that they had undertaken no strategic planning concerning meeting the particular needs of ethnic minority children beyond 2008, when the current EMAG funding finishes and a new three-year budget cycle begins.

 

After a further course of very fine food, talk turned to what we could do about it. We had an interesting discussion first about how policy and campaigns are initiated in the Union. I was very keen to promote the idea that meetings such as this one were ideal for feeding into the Association structure and thus to the national executive member etc – in other words an “organising agenda” bottom-up process.

 

So what could we do? First we agreed that the those present – about 25 EMAG members, would attend the next full Association meeting which would be considering amendments to Conference motions – and would put an amendment to the Racism motion, calling for a concerted and focused EMAG campaign. John Holmes, the National Executive member agreed that he would raise it at the Executive a couple of days later. Meantime, the Association would get the campaign underway in Derby – including using the media and direct approaches to the community to reveal what is happening. They would follow this up with lobbies of Councillors, and representations to LA officers. It was felt important that parents of all ethnic communities should understand the issues and be encouraged to get involved.

 

So we had an excellent evening – excellent in terms of the numbers of members there, the information, the speaker, a good discussion, some positive campaigning outcomes for taking the issue forward, and a bit of re-invigoration of Union participation and democracy. The food was VERY good too!

 

Thanks to all for having me along.