Teachers union comments on the Government’s pay announcement

The government will offer teachers a 4% pay rise next year after the government accepted the review body’s recommendation, with additional funding of £615 million coming to schools.

However, the government has said schools will still have to fund around a quarter of the rise themselves – which equates to finding £400 million from their own budgets.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said:

“Teachers have been overstretched and undervalued for far too long but from my first day in office, I have made it my priority to back them so that teaching is restored as the highly valued profession it should be.

This pay award for schools backed by major investment alongside funding for further education is in recognition of the crucial role teachers play in breaking the link between background and success and will support schools and colleges to invest in the workforce they need, so every young person achieves and thrives.

As part of our Plan for Change, we are already seeing green shoots, with two thousand more secondary school teachers training this year than last and more teachers forecasted to stay in the profession.”

But trade unions said they were still concerned about whether schools could afford to make more savings.

Commenting on the teacher pay announcement for September, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:

“It is testament to the strength of feeling in the profession that government have moved from their initial recommendation of a 2.8% pay rise to the 4% announced today.

Whilst we acknowledge and welcome additional funding to that initially offered by government, it is still the case that the pay award is not fully funded.

In many schools this will mean cuts in service provision to children and young people, job losses, and additional workloads for an already overstretched profession.

The NEU will never accept cuts to education. Children deserve a fully-resourced education and government should see education as an investment in the country’s future not a cost.

Whilst teachers and school leaders know there are no ‘efficiencies’ to be made at a school level there is wastage at a system level resulting from the fragmentation to the education system caused by academisation.

We will press the government to tackle these system level issues starting with capping CEO pay, introducing national energy contracts for schools, and ending the supply agency rip off.

Unless the government commit to fully funding the pay rise then it is likely that the NEU will register a dispute with the government on the issue of funding, and campaign to ensure every parent understands the impact of a cut in the money available to schools, and that every politician understands this too.

We welcome steps outlined today around flexible working and TLRs. Teaching is a profession made up of 76 per cent women and it is right that issues that most impact upon women are addressed as a matter of urgency.”