Thank you for contacting me about teachers' strike action.
After two years of disrupted education due to the Covid-19 pandemic, every single day spent in school with experienced teachers who know their students makes a difference to a child’s development. The NEU’s decision to call strike action puts children’s education and wellbeing at risk at a time when teachers are working hard to support them in recovering from the pandemic.
I am deeply disappointed that the NEU has taken this step given that the Government announced a record funding increase for schools in the Autumn Statement. In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor confirmed that schools in England will receive an additional £2 billion of funding next year and the year after. This will be the highest real terms spending on schools in history, totalling £58.8 billion by 2024/25. Of course, that does not mean that teachers are not facing pressure, but this is not a sector starved of investment.
I understand the pressures many teachers, like the rest of society, are facing now due to the challenge of high inflation. Teachers do a job that is essential to our society, and they do it brilliantly. The Government is clear that their pay should reflect that, which is why the pay rise teachers are receiving this year is the highest in a generation.
The Government accepted the recommendations of the Independent Pay Review Body to provide the highest pay increases for 30 years, with teachers seeing pay rises of 5 to 8.9 per cent, and new teachers receiving the highest uplift. This will take teacher starting salaries to £28,000, which is significant progress towards this Government’s 2019 manifesto commitment of a £30,000 starting salary.
Most teachers early in their career and around 40 per cent of experienced teachers not already at the top of their pay scale will also get pay increases through progression or promotion, which in total could mean rises of up to 15.9 per cent this year.
Furthermore, teachers’ pensions are among the best and safest available – and they come with a 23.6 per cent employer pension contribution. By contrast, in the private sector 48 percent of employees receive an employer contribution of less than 4 per cent. Teacher contributions start from as little as 7.4 per cent and a maximum of 11.7 per cent.
The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high status profession, and to recruit and retain teachers in key subjects. Reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department is making £181 million available in bursaries and scholarships to attract trainee teachers in high priority subjects for academic year 2023/24. This is a £52 million increase on the current academic year. As graduates in science technology, engineering, and mathematics attract the highest salaries outside teaching, the Department is offering a £27,000 tax-free bursary or a £29,000 tax-free scholarship in chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics. The Department is also offering a £20,000 tax-free bursary in design and technology.
The Department also offers a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools across England, including in rural areas and Education Investment Areas (EIAs). This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in the subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.
The Secretary of State for Education and officials from the Department for Education (DfE) continue to meet the trades unions to try to prevent strike action. The Government’s priority will always be to keep schools open and to keep children in the classroom, and the DfE has issued guidance to school leaders to help with this process.