Politics

The Education Secretary claiming children prefer portacabins to their classrooms wasn’t the gotcha she thought – 15 ‘See me!’ notes

Oonagh Keating. Updated September 20th, 2023

If she weren’t so directly involved in the education and life chances of children, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan would be endlessly entertaining.

As it is, her ratio of gaffe to speech is tempered by the news that even more schools are in a dangerous condition due to RAAC, and many children are currently having lessons in temporary buildings.

She addressed this in a Commons response.

“In terms of the, er, portacabins, I’ve been to a number of these schools and seen, er, children and met, er, children in the portacabins – and, er, in fact, the first school I went to the children were all petitioning me, er, to stay in the portacabin ’cause they actually preferred it to the classrooms.

So, er, the portacabins are very, very high quality and I would advise the honourable lady to go and see some of the high-quality portacabins that we have – and that is true.”

We’re not sure preferring to study in a glorified shipping container because it’s safer than your school building is that much of a flex – and neither were these people.

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The unofficial Portakabin advert begged a very important question.

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Source Sky News Image Screengrab