Courtney also served until August 2023 on the General Council and Executive Committee of the Trades Union Congress, where since 2019 he (jointly alongside Mary Bousted) was lead member on issues of digital change.
[3] He has worked with the Anti Academies Alliance, a pressure group opposing the transfer of the operation of schools in England from the public sector to private-sector organisations.
"[5] Courtney is critical of funding cuts to education which he feels lead to larger classes and less well qualified people teaching children.
Courtney said, “If the government does not act decisively and soon, the recruitment and retention crisis will seriously damage our children and young people’s education.”[7] Courtney also stated, “Our own research shows that 81% of teachers have considered leaving the profession in the last year because of workload, driven in a large part by time-consuming data gathering that has little or nothing to do with children’s education.
Real-terms pay cuts have put teaching far behind other graduate professions and, in London and other hotspots around the country, very high rents have also contributed to the problem.
"[9] When the JCVI declined to back mass vaccinations for 12-15 year olds in September 2021, he said “this makes additional safety mitigations in schools all the more important.”[10] He lives in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney.