Sixth-form college teachers will vote on strike action over pay from later this month.

The NEU teaching union will ballot members at 40 sixth-form colleges from 14 September to 7 November.

The move comes after the Department for Education confirmed that teachers and leaders will receive a 5.5 per cent pay rise from September 2024.

The DfE announcement came after it accepted the independent School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations.

Although academised sixth-forms have been guaranteed funding to implement the 5.5 per cent pay uplift, this has not been offered to non-academised colleges, the NEU said.

Calls to end ‘teacher pay inequality’

This decision “flies in the face” of the Labour government’s manifesto commitment to “good faith negotiation and bargaining”, said Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU.

Mr Kebede called on the government to end “pay inequality” between schools and colleges and review its decision not to fund the pay rise at non-academised sixth-form colleges to avoid a “damaging dispute”.

NEU members previously voted against moving to a formal vote for strike action over pay and funding in the summer term, and instead backed waiting for the formal pay offer from the government.

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Meanwhile, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has also raised concerns about parity in teacher pay between schools and sixth forms.

Writing for Tes, Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the ASCL, said providing certainty over pay awards for sixth-form colleges should be a government priority.

“If we do not achieve pay parity for all teachers, we risk creating a gap in the profession that is neither fair nor in the best interest of recruitment going forward,” he said.

Answering a parliamentary question this week, education minister Janet Daby said the government neither sets nor makes recommendations about further education teachers’ pay.

Such decisions are the responsibility of individual colleges, which make pay awards in line with local circumstances, Ms Daby said.

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.