Ahead of the 2024 spring budget, Paul Whiteman, general secretary
of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:
“The budget is this government’s last chance before the election
to invest in the nation’s children and reverse the crippling cuts
schools have seen since 2010. The Prime Minister is running out
of time to make good on the promise he made last year, that his
“main funding priority at every spending
review” would be education.
“The RAAC crisis shows that schools are struggling with outdated
and inadequate facilities. It’s hard for teachers to get children
to concentrate on their learning when they are distracted with
leaky ceilings, crumbling, cold classrooms, and broken boilers.
“We are also calling on government to immediately commit
sufficient funding for children and young people with special
educational needs (SEND). The number of young people who require
SEND support has spiralled at the same time as external support
services have been cut. School finances are so pressed that they
cannot cover the extra cost.
“The crisis in teacher recruitment and retention will snowball
into a national emergency if the government does not restore
teachers’ and leaders’ pay to 2010 levels. That starts with a
double digit pay rise this year. Teaching is a fantastic career –
but a decade of below inflation pay rises, and poor terms and
conditions at a time when more employers are offering greater
flexibility mean it is just not competitive in the graduate
marketplace. This pay-rise must not come at the expense of the
school budget, and we urge the Chancellor to protect any school
funding on Wednesday.”
Ends
Notes to editor
- At the 2023 Conservative Party
conference, the Prime Minister said:
Our teachers do one of the most valuable jobs in our
society, and we should reward them for that. And conference, I
can tell you: my main funding priority in every spending review
from now on will be education. Why? Because it is the closest
thing to a silver bullet we have. It is the best economic policy,
the best social policy, the best moral policy.
Rishi Sunak's full speech
from Conservative Party Conference in Manchester -
