And people with views on Government education policy that are critical are not being allowed to speak at conferences as the DFE threatens to pull funding.
Sounds like cancel culture
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”.
Conkbayir felt she had no choice but to pull out. Another key speaker, Julie Harmieson, director of education and strategy at training organisation Trauma Informed Schools, pulled out in solidarity. In an email to the organisers, she said: “I would not feel comfortable speaking, knowing that Mine has been silenced in the way she has.”
Conkbayir believes that the DfE attempted to silence her because she challenged its Covid recovery strategy for young children. Like other early-years experts, she disagreed with the strategy because it initially recommended putting very small children who misbehaved in “time out” or taking away their toys as a punishment – strategies she believes are psychologically harmful as well as unlikely to work.
She says she had a productive conversation with the department about this, and they agreed to “modify the language”. Following this, she was surprised to hear that she had been blacklisted as a critic. “The government wants their narrative to reign supreme, and no debate is allowed.”