Teachers’ Strikes Hit the UK

The UK’s central education institution, the National Education Union (NEU), has announced seven days’ worth of strikes to hit the UK across February and March 2023, with each individual school potentially being affected for up to four days. However, the government has urged schools to stay open if feasible. Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU, warned of a ‘workforce crisis’ to come in schools due to teachers losing nearly a quarter of their pay since 2010. She and Kevin Courtney – the other joint general secretary of the NEU – have stated that ‘the average 5% pay raise for teachers this year is some 7% behind inflation. Amid a cost-of-living crisis, that is an unsustainable situation’.

Many state schoolteachers in England and Wales received a 5% raise in 2022, and teachers in Northern Ireland were offered a 3.2% raise for the past two school years. However, this inflation means that increases in pay are simply pay cuts in the long term. Counteroffers such as 5% and 6.85% for those paid least in Scotland were dismissed as ‘insulting’, the BBC states.

Starting salaries are expected to rise for teachers in England to £30,000 a year by this September with state schoolteachers being paid an average of £38,982 last school year, contrasting with £39,009 in Wales and £40,026 in Scotland. Education authorities in Northern Ireland have declined to submit a figure.

All schools in England and Wales will be affected during the striking time period, as teaching members of the NEU in England and Wales have voted to correct ‘historic real term pay cuts’ according to the union. The first day of national strike on the 1st of February is predicted to affect 23,400 schools throughout England and Wales. Teaching staff in sixth form colleges in England have previously balloted and taken strike action in the latest months but will continue to act on the specific allocated striking days throughout the upcoming months: the 1st, 14th and 28th of February, as well as the 1st, 2nd, 15th and 16th of March.

Across Scotland, national and local strikes have caused almost all primary and secondary schools to close and will continue for another 16 days, as the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) commented on the 16th of January. In Northern Ireland, meeting attendance and administrative tasks are impacted as teachers from five unions join in with the strikes.