The schools White Paper (published on Wednesday 24th November) makes a series of declarations on race and other ‘equalities’ issues.
Back in June, as the new Department for Education settled in, I commented on a new ‘bullying’ duty on schools, originally proposed by the Labour government, but now placed on hold. This measure had been designed to extend the existing practice of 'racist incident' reporting into a statutory obligation to record all prejudice-based verbal and physical abuse according to type (i.e. race, religion or culture, disability or special educational needs, sexuality, gender or gender identity).
This week’s White Paper offers some clues as to whether this cack-handed, managerialist approach to equality and bullying is likely to come to pass. Doubtless many of the New Labour era advocates of official anti racism will have assumed the Coalition was about to abandon these proposals in a fit of Tory-led disdain for red tape, and, indeed, for the principle of equality itself. The White Paper’s declarations are as follows: On page 25 (3.6) the paper speaks of the need for “zero tolerance of bullying” and states, “[we will] expect head teachers to take a strong stand against bullying – particularly prejudice-based racist, sexist and homophobic bullying”. It goes on to say “[we will] focus Ofsted inspections more strongly on behaviour and safety, including bullying, as one of four key areas of inspection.” On page 31 (3.19) the White Paper says “Teachers, pupils and charities report that prejudice-based bullying in particular is on the increase”, going on to say:
“Ninety-eight per cent of young gay pupils hear the word ‘gay’ used as a form of abuse at school, and homophobic bullying is often directed at heterosexual pupils as well”, and (3.20): “Schools should take incidents of prejudice-based bullying especially seriously. It is important that they educate children about the differences between different groups of people and create a culture of respect and understanding”.
So its fairly clear that the Coalition have retained all the previous government’s certainties over the scale and seriousness of the prejudice-based bullying ‘problem’. The use of the phrase zero tolerance (much loved by the equality zealots who proliferated under Labour) and the notion that the negative use of the word “gay” must be “eliminated” (see p25/3.20 for the White Papers potted case history from St George’s School, Hertfordshire) gives quite a strong indication that the state’s appetite for playground hate speech regulation is alive and well.
As it stands, the White Paper declares that the Government will simplify existing anti-bullying guidance (a refererance to the voluminous Safe to Learn ‘suite’ of guidance) and work with non-government organisations to promote ‘best practice’. Its of note that the NGO’s cited (Stonewall and the Anti Bullying Alliance) promote the absurd claim that there exists a school UK-wide “epidemic” of homophobia and of bullying respectively.
Its really only when we see the detail of this guidance that we’ll know if, despite the new Lib Con branding, the substance of policy has changed. I doubt it will. For example, the DfE make much out of their determination to restore trust and hand power back to headteachers and teachers. And yet on the 15th November Nick Gibb revealed to the News of the World that there will be “no-notice inspections” should the Government feel bullying is “out of control”. If Nick Gibb really believes “around half of all children” have been bullied in school, that epidemics of prejudice-based bullying run unchecked, that a kid slagging off another kids trainers as “gay” equals homophobia – then ‘out of control’ could describe any school.
