Teachers walk out over college funding fears

EXAMS at Rotherham’s biggest sixth-form college have been moved this week as teachers walked out on strike today.

NUT members at Thomas Rotherham College are holding a day’s strike in a row over funding and possible reforms.

Principal Dr Richard Williams confirmed the college, which has over 1,500 students, would be closed to most students and internal exams due to be held that day had been moved later in the week, meaning some follow-up lessons will be cancelled.

Teenagers set to sit an external exam will still be able to do so.

NUT regional Division Secretary Fred Sprague said the nationwide industrial action was to focus attention on funding cuts over the past few years, plans to scrap VAT exemptions for sixth-form colleges and the potential for colleges to be forged into mergers.

Mr Sprague, who said the union could see “no sense at all” in the idea of college mergers, added that a “significant number” of staff would be involved in the strike.

The NUT held a public meeting last week to raise awareness of concerns that schools were becoming “exam factories”.

Mr Sprague said the general feeling of the meeting at Rotherham Town Hall last Tuesday was that focussing on exams and tests was having a negative effect on students and teaching.

The views of teachers and parents would be passed on to Rotherham’s MPs to raise their concerns with the Government.

He said the union was also calling on Ministers to scrap this year’s Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs after the “chaotic way” they were carried out last year.