Government forcing teachers to 'work until you drop,' says NASUWT

Commenting on today’s announcement that the Government is to bring forward the effective date from which the state pension age will only become payable at 68, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union said:

“Over recent years teachers have already faced hugely detrimental changes to their occupational pensions, compounded by year after year of real term cuts to their pay. Now on top of all this they, like six million other workers in the UK, are being told they are to be denied access to their state pension until they are even older.

“This Government is clearly determined to make teachers ‘work until they drop’, in a profession already recognised as one of the most stressful in the country.”

The NASUWT remains in dispute with the Government over adverse changes to teachers’ pensions, including the arbitrary decision to increase their normal pension age.

The announcement today will deepen the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, and further demoralise teachers who are being made to pay the price for the failure of the Government’s economic policies.