A number of education unions have jointly sent a letter to Damian Hinds asking him to ‘decide urgently’ on his response to the School Teachers’ Review Body report on teachers’ pay for September 2018. With the ‘end of term imminent’ they are asking for the publication of both his response and the report as soon as possible.
The organisations had previously requested “a five per cent pay increase for all teachers and additional funding to ensure its implementation is fully funded”.
However, an article recently produced by TES (16/07/18) suggested that the delayed announcement had fuelled concerns, throughout the cohorts of educational unions, that the offer will disappoint.
TES claim that a plan to now ballot for industrial action over teacher’s pay in September is already ‘on the cards’.
With schools reporting difficulties in recruiting and holding some teachers, the unions had asked for the pay rise to be fully funded – i.e. not to be taken from existing budgets. However, Dave Harvey, a London member of the NUT section’s national executive, said:
“That discussion at government level has to be ‘how much of this award, if any, can we fund?’ and we are drawing the conclusion that it is not going to be funded and, therefore, industrial action is on the cards.”
In addition to this, teacher activists are promoting the #WhereistheSTRB hashtag on social media to promote their concerns and put pressure on Mr Hinds to respond with this decision.
The Department for Education said it was considering the STRB report and would respond in due course.
A spokesperson added that it was committed to making sure teaching remains an attractive and fulfilling profession.