Closed petition The Education Secretary should be required to have had real teaching experience

Closed on 17 September 2016

Having 'once been to school' (and especially if it was a fee-paying school) is not a qualification for setting state policy for education. The current and past Education Secretaries generally have no understanding of the pressures faced by modern teachers or pupils.

I recently signed a petition regarding a specific decision on education policy. However, I realised that none of the nonsensical and impractical decision-making would change until someone with a working, practical knowledge of life in a school and classroom takes charge. I would add an addendum that a significant proportion of the executive staff of the Department for Education should also have teaching experience. Education is too important to be a political football for short-term gain.