After days of intensive negotiation, the education unions ASCL, NAHT, NASUWT and NEU have been presented with a pay offer by the education Secretary.
This amounts to a £1000 one-off cash payment for the present school year (2022/23) and a 4.3% consolidated pay rise for most teachers for next year (2023/24). The Government claims this is fully funded but NEU analysis suggests that between 2 in 5 (42%) and 3 in 5 (58%) of schools would have to make cuts next year to afford it.
Following discussion by the National Executive Committee on Saturday 25 March, the NEU will put this offer to its members, recommending rejection. The ballot opens today and closes on Sunday 2 April.
Commenting on the pay offer, Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretaries of the National Education Union, said:
“This is an insulting offer from a Government which simply does not value teachers.
“This offer is less than teachers in Scotland and Wales have been offered. It does nothing to address the long-term decline in teacher pay and therefore does nothing to solve the problems in teacher recruitment and retention. Each year the Government’s own teacher training targets are routinely missed and a third of teachers leave within five years of qualifying. 13% of those who qualified in 2019 have quit. The Government seems content for this to continue.
“Not only is the offer on pay entirely out of step with the rest of the UK, it is also not fully funded. NEU analysis shows that between 2 in 5 (42%) and 3 in 5 (58%) of schools would have to make cuts to afford staff pay rises. Schools will continue to be stretched financially, and it is students who will suffer. Staffing and services will be squeezed in order to comply. This is not a sustainable situation and we stated so throughout our campaign and during negotiations.
“It is now crystal clear that we have an Education Secretary and a Government that is ignoring the crisis in our schools and colleges. By refusing to address the legitimate and reasonable request to bring to an end more than a decade of below-inflation unfunded teacher pay increases, the Government is driving teaching and recruitment retention in schools in England to breaking point.
“No child benefits from this level of underfunding. Investing in the education of this generation of children and young people, those hit so hard by Covid, is essential to economic recovery. To sit by and allow so many talented teachers to leave for reasons which are entirely fixable, should be a point of shame for this Government.
“The NEU is determined that this does not stop here and following the results of the ballot on the current pay offer we will be considering our next steps in our campaign to stand up for the education of children and the teaching profession.”