Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), welcomed the proposals for a 5% pay rise but fears it still amounts to a pay cut after inflation is taken into account. The School Teacher Review Body, the independent panel that advises the government on pay, is said to have told the Department for Education (DfE) that its proposal for a 3% rise for experienced teachers was insufficient and recommended 5% instead. The STRB is due to publish its recommendations before the end of this month, based on government proposals and submissions from headteachers and education unions. In December, Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, told STRB he wanted a 3% pay rise for experienced teachers next year and 2% the year after, as well as a steeper increase for recent recruits, as part of a Conservative pledge manifesto for Teachers’ starting salaries will rise to £30,000 a year. But steep rises in the cost of living have made Zahawi’s proposal obsolete and last month prompted England’s two major teaching unions, the National Education Union and the NASUWT, to threaten to hold strike ballots later this year. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Zahawi has formally approached the Ministry of Finance to approve 5% salary increases, with teachers in the first five years of their careers receiving a 9% increase. The DfE declined to comment, describing the report as “speculation”. Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT, said the plans “were nowhere near” what was needed and accused ministers of refusing to engage with the profession. “The deepening cost of living crisis coupled with 12 years of real teacher pay cuts require a genuine commitment to restore teacher pay from September,” Roach said. Bousted said the latest figures for applications to teacher training courses revealed an “absolutely dire” picture in many subjects, making it harder to replace teachers who leave in search of better pay and workloads. “If we don’t get a much better pay offer, we will try to vote our members in the fall, in October. But we don’t want to do that,” Boutsted told the BBC. “We are asking Nadhim Zahawi to work with us immediately and negotiate – we are ready to do it and there is time to do it.” Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that teacher pay levels fell by 4-5% for young and less experienced teachers between 2007 and 2021, while wages for more experienced teachers fell by 8% in real terms over the same period. The DfE said any pay rises would be taken from existing budgets, as part of next year’s £4bn increase in the overall schools budget in the latest spending review. However, rising inflation, particularly due to rising energy costs, has put a strain on school finances. Luke Sibieta of the IFS said that while school budgets could “probably” cope with a 4% pay rise, a rise of 5% or more may require extra government funding. The increases will mainly affect teachers in state schools, not those teaching in sixth form or further education colleges.
