The next government needs to reverse “14 years of chronic underfunding”, a teaching union president will say today as she warns there are cracks in school buildings and the education system.
In her speech to the NASUWT 2024 conference, new president Rashida Din will say that “our profession is in crisis” through real-terms cuts to school budgets, record waiting lists for children’s mental health support, cuts to special educational needs and disabilities support, school buildings at risk of collapse and teacher shortages.
To repair “cracks in our ceilings and cracks in our education system”, the next government must reverse “14 years of chronic underfunding and invest in the workforce with world-class pay and working conditions”, Ms Din will add.
Ms Din will also question the impact of the accountability system on schools.
”Has the national curriculum, with over-reliance on exams and narrowing of subject choice, failed our young people?” she will ask.
“Our members are telling us that practical subjects such as art, music and design are increasingly being devalued due to accountability pressures”.
Pay and minimum service levels
In her speech, she will say that the NASUWT will campaign against the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, which could see minimum staffing levels during strikes introduced, enforced by work notices to teachers.
Unions have previously criticised the plan as an ”attack on teachers’ basic democratic rights”.
The NASUWT will also continue to campaign for better pay for teachers, she will tell delegates.
In its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body, the Department for Education recommended this year’s teacher pay rise should be lower than the previous two years.
“NASUWT will also strengthen its campaign for a Better Deal for Teachers throughout 2024 for better pay and working conditions. It is not over,” Ms Din will tell NASUWT members in Harrogate today.
She will conclude her speech by saying: ”When we fight, we win. We are ordinary teachers but we have done extraordinary things and will continue this proud tradition. Give us justice or we will fight.”
Teacher pay deal
Last year, the government accepted the pay body’s recommendation that teachers receive a 6.5 per cent pay rise from September 2023. The deal came after a long-running dispute over pay and months of strike action by teachers in the NEU teaching union.
Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found this week that teachers’ pay has seen a bigger fall in real terms than the public sector as a whole since 2010.
Ms Din has taught science across primary, secondary and SEMH schools for more than 25 years. She has been a senior leader in a pupil referral unit in Bedfordshire for 17 years.
She is the tenth woman to be NASUWT’s president and its first Muslim president.
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