Saturday, February 09, 2019

Failing on teachers pay

An admission comes in the Department for Education’s official submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body, which makes recommendations on pay deals. It states that pay is also lower than it was 15 years ago in real terms. “From 2002-03 to 2017-18, classroom teacher median salaries have seen a drop of 10% and overall teacher median salaries of 11% in real terms,” it says. 

Classroom pay has fallen by more than £4,000 a year since 2010 in real terms, according to a government assessment.

Unions have been calling for a 5% rise for the next academic year, arguing that low pay makes it hard to retain staff. Last year, about 60% of teachers were expected to receive below-inflation awards Only a 2% increase can be expected for the next academic year.

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said:  It is no good Damian Hinds [the education secretary], trying to argue that this is the same for private sector jobs – those figures reflect the many graduates forced into low-paid, part-time, semi-casual jobs, whereas we are talking about the pay rates being offered to those joining a profession.”

The number of secondary school pupils is forecast to rise by 15% during the next decade. However, the government missed its recruitment targets for trainees for the past six years, with the biggest shortfalls in key subjects like maths, modern foreign languages and physics.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/09/teacher-pay-down-real-terms-since-2003

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