This November 70,000 teachers are going on strike. The University and College Union (UCU), who represent over 120,000 academics, have organised a strike on the 24th, 25th and 30th of November that will spread across multiple campuses in the UK. This means most schools will be closed.
Documented prices are rising at over 10% per year, the fastest rate for 40 years, however the income has stayed the same and the cost of living is starting to become too much. The Government rejected a 5% pay rise offer for teachers and then when a separate offer was proposed for a £1,925 increase for support staff it was also rejected. If the Government was to give them a pay rise, then the strike would be called off. National Education Union said, “It is regrettable that we have reached this point, but enough is enough.”
Most of the real terms drop in teacher pay can be accounted for by pay freezes and caps implemented between 2010 and 2014. These large falls mean that between 2007 and 2014, teacher pay fell by 8% in real terms, even larger than the 6.5% economy-wide fall in average earnings over that period, according to The Institute for Fiscal Studies website.
Teachers feel they are overworked and undervalued. Jumana is a primary school teacher, quoted from the BBC, and she says, “I didn’t sign up to teach 35 to 45 pupils per class due to insufficient staff numbers and slashes in our funding.” Schools are extremely unstaffed. Primary school children with special educational needs are not getting the help to which they are entitled, because of support staff and teacher shortages, sourced from Unison.
According to the Financial Times, on November 23rd thousands of university staff will also take action by working only their contracted hours and refusing to cover for absent colleagues. UCU has been locked in a bitter dispute with employers over pensions, pay and working conditions since 2018. In February, university staff went on strike for 10 days at almost 70 institutions.
Jo Grady, general secretary of UCU, said employers were “about to experience strike action on a scale never seen before”.
This trend of teachers going on strike might expand to secondary and primary schools. Let us know your opinions on this in the comments section below.
Kristena Yr9
Boston High School