A new blog from James Zuccollo, Director for School
Workforce at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), explores
the ongoing difficulties and seemingly
‘irreconcilable differences’ facing negotiations on the 2022/23
teacher pay awards.
Key Findings:
-
Teacher supply is at risk. Department for Education (DfE)
forecasts indicate a need for 5,000 more teachers between
2021 and 2025, but current recruitment targets are not being
met and nearly a third of teachers leave the profession
within five years.
-
In recent years teachers’ pay in England has fallen
behind, both in real terms and versus teacher pay in many
other countries.
-
There is a case for differentiated pay increases, with
research showing that teachers outside of London and
under the age of 30 earn 10% less than other professionals
their age, whilst those in their 50s earn only 3.5% less.
Larger rises for early career teachers therefore make
sense.
-
Calls for a higher flat pay increase for all teachers may
improve recruitment and retention, if large enough, but would
be more expensive than DfE’s current approach.
-
The Government will need to consider increasing its original
proposal on teachers’ pay to help limit further recruitment
and retention problems, and reduce the risk of industrial
action, but they must also consider the wider implications
this will have on schools’ budgets, in the absence of any
further commitments from the Treasury to boost education
budgets.
-
The settlement agreed will have implications for both the
attractiveness of the profession and the ability of schools
to combat pupils’ lost learning as a result of the
pandemic.
James Zuccollo, Director for School Workforce at the
Education Policy Institute (EPI), said: “This looks
like being one of the most difficult teacher pay negotiations for
many years, with a large gap between the settlement offered by
the Government and the amount being requested by the unions. The
evidence shows that teacher pay has declined in real terms in
England over the last decade, and teachers in this country have
fared far worse than in many other nations. But unless the
Treasury is willing to allocate more cash to education, a large
pay rise could put huge pressure on school and college budgets.
There is a strong case for targeting the largest rises on early
career teachers, whose pay looks particularly low compared with
competeing occupations."
Read the full blog here.
