TEACHERS should get time off to go to the Glastonbury music festival, the head of Britain’s biggest teaching union said.
They deserve greater flexibility to skip class, according to Daniel Kebede, who moaned he was not allowed to go to Glastonbury when he taught in a primary school.
The comments from the National Education Union’s general secretary come weeks before it is to ballot members on a fresh round of strikes over pay, funding and workload — and just as Labour revokes anti-strike laws.
Mr Kebede, 38, said: “We do need to find ways of injecting greater flexibility into teaching.
“Not being able to go to Glastonbury, actually, was something I always complained about as a teacher.”
He said he was on a collision course with the government, warning the NEU was “still on a direction of travel this year for industrial action”, unless there was an improvement in funding.
He added: “You have to mobilise people.”
But Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake said it was preposterous to suggest teachers should be able to “skip class and go partying”.
This month we reported on rogue teachers being thrown out of England’s classrooms in record numbers – with nearly FOUR a week banned for disgraceful behaviour.
The figures lay bare a grim catalogue of shame – including school staff struck off for having sex with pupils, sending nude images and boozing on duty.
A Sun on Sunday audit reveals how 191 teachers were banned from the profession in the last year.
That is the highest figure ever recorded – and more than three times higher than the 63 banned just five years earlier.
On average, a staggering 16 teachers are now being blacklisted each month – or one every other day.
Among those kicked out are school sirs who bedded pupils and teachers who sent children nude pictures.
