A statement from the NEU in regards to the strike action planned:
Pay for experienced teachers has fallen by over a fifth in real terms since 2010. And now Britain is facing the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation. Yet while your bills keep going up, your pay is not keeping pace.
Energy and food bills are soaring. The pay offer of 5% for most teachers in September 2022 was well below the soaring level of inflation – so this was a real terms pay cut of over 7% in 2022 alone to add to the already major real terms pay cuts between 2010 and 2021. To add insult to injury the pay offer is not fully funded. Teachers have lost 23% of the value of their pay in real terms against RPI inflation since 2010 and educators are leaving the profession in their droves.
Long hours and poor pay are the main reasons teachers are leaving the profession in their droves. This Government is presiding over one of the worst recruitment and retention crises ever seen in education.
Children are losing out because there are not enough teachers. Even when there is a teacher in the classroom, increasingly they are not qualified in the subject they are teaching. Parents and grandparents hear their children and grandchildren talking about ‘new’ teachers in the middle of the school year; of lessons being ‘covered’ by supply teachers, of teachers leaving. Lack of qualified teachers harms the education that children and young people receive.