UK government keeping files on teaching assistants and librarians’ internet activity | Education policy | The Guardian
I wonder if anyone here is on the list?
And if you criticise Government policy, then you might find yourself unlikely to be invited to education conferences as a speaker.
Dr Mine Conkbayir, an award-winning early-childhood author and consultant, was told by the organisers of an early-years conference for nursery staff and childminders in Bristol in March, for which she was due to give the keynote speech, that the DfE had threatened to withdraw funding for the conference if she spoke. They were unhappy about her criticisms of their policies on social media.
She told the Observer: “I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I was frightened. I thought, ‘They are trying to silence me and they have so much power.’”
The organisers were appalled and told Conkbayir that they fought her corner “fiercely”. But the DfE would only agree to allow her to speak for a shorter time online, with the department checking her speech first. This echoes their tactics with Swailes and Bradbury, who assumed that the reason the DfE wanted them to speak on Zoom and not in person was so that officials could “cut us off if they didn’t like what we were saying”.