Commenting on the appointment of
as Chancellor and as Education
Secretary, Kevin
Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union,
said:
"In the last eight years, we have seen
seven education secretaries and five chancellors. This does
nothing to imbue confidence. Not one of the education secretaries
have had any experience of education - nor have they sought to
work with teachers to make education
better.
"Teachers and other education staff
are crying out for a shift on the issues that matter so
critically in education.
"School funding has been depressed for
years; the majority of schools still have lower real terms
funding than they did in 2015. Child poverty and child hunger are
high and increasing. Class sizes are the highest they have been
in decades. Workload - and teacher stress - remain sky high,
and pay has been cut by a fifth in real terms since 2010.
Recruitment and retention problems are deep rooted in this
country, with government offering no solutions to retain teachers
who continue to leave in droves. The current offer on pay will
not shift that dial.
"The causes of these problems are not
obscure or mysterious. They are the consequence of government
policy, which has worked persistently against education and the
interests of teachers, parents and pupils for far too long. We
welcome to the most important job
in government and hope that she will make the
difference.
"Her first priority must be to
press the new Chancellor to go much further on teacher pay - and
on support staff and supply staff pay too - than he himself
pledged a week ago.
"The current suggestion of experienced
teachers getting a 3% pay rise this year and a 2% rise next year
when inflation is 11.7% is nothing like good
enough.
"If we are to avoid a strike ballot
amongst the nation's teachers the government and must do much better than
that."
