Commenting after the passing of motion 20 at NEU Annual Conference, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“Government policy over past decades has led to the fragmentation of the education system. This has extended to teacher pay which can in theory be set school by school. This means that a teacher can teach the same subject, to a similar cohort, in a similar environment, work equally as hard, achieve similar outcomes, and yet receive a different salary. The same disparity applies to working conditions and workload. Furthermore, this results in a waste of money by unnecessary duplication.
“NEU are calling for an end to such unfairness and demand equity for all educators. We call on the government to re-introduce the collective bargaining over teachers’ pay that was abolished in 1987 and commit to the creation of a national contract, so that teachers – wherever they teach in the country and whatever subject they teach – are rewarded fairly and equitably. Such a step can be an important contribution towards addressing the recruitment and retention issues in our schools.
“Unfortunately, rather than address the chronic underfunding of schools that is behind the recruitment and retention crisis, the government is responsible for squeezing school budgets to breaking point, putting further pressure on pay.”