Today’s teachers’ strikes won’t just harm kids but cause another major problem too
THE strikes closing schools today and next week, bookending an already long weekend, are an episode that I know many teachers will look back on with regret.
As we enter the critical exam period for teenagers, all of whom have already had their education disrupted by the pandemic, it is hard not to believe that further damage to them will be the inevitable consequence of the strike.
Parents up and down the country will be tearing their hair out looking for childcare, making frantic calls for help to grandparents, or explaining to their boss why they can’t make it to work.
Times are tough for so many families, this is the last thing they need.
Even worse, those teachers who aren’t even taking part in the strike may be prevented from working because their own kids are affected and will have to stay at home.
Police officers, nurses, doctors, firefighters — many of whom have already accepted pay deals about the same as being offered to teaching unions — will be unable to work their shifts.
Most of all, families will be deeply worried about yet another interruption to their children’s education just as things were getting back to normal after Covid.
The pandemic cost our kids dear, each lost an average of 61 days of schooling in the first year alone.
Now these two strike days — the fourth and fifth national ones this year — will come as a blow upon a terrible bruise for many families.
It didn’t have to be this way, and I’m certain most teachers don’t want to strike at all.
When I was Secretary of State for Education, I met with the headteachers and the unions and listened to their concerns.
Along with many others in the sector they felt that schools were under significant financial pressure to the tune of about £2billion.
After carefully going through the numbers, I agreed with them and others in the sector who had raised this issue with me.
I began a vigorous campaign to convince Treasury Ministers to invest more in schools.
Belligerent attitude
I took the campaign with me to the back benches, recruited more MPs to help, and together we pushed hard.
So I was delighted when, in November last year, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt did exactly as we asked and ploughed a further £2.3bn a year into the schools budget, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak making education one of his priority areas of work.
Two billion pounds is enough money to buy 475 Challenger tanks for the Army or 76,000 Vauxhall Astras for the police.
Next week every school in England will see the benefit of this cash as it starts to land in their bank accounts.
Primary schools will receive around £35,000, on average, and secondary schools a whopping £200,000.
This boost means that by 2025 the schools’ budgets per pupil will be at the highest level ever in history in real terms.
Cash benefit
But are the union leadership happy? Of course not.
Even though less than half their membership actually voted for the strike, they are demanding even more.
Given the enormous amounts of money now being pumped into the system, it’s hard not to wonder if the union leadership have a different agenda.
To break the log jam, last month the Government offered a payment of £1,000 to every teacher on top of their 5.4 per cent rise this year, and a solid 4.5 per cent next year.
The Union refused, and now this year’s money has gone — their tactics have cost their members £1,000 each.
Silent majority
Worse than this, their belligerent attitude will hit morale in the profession and will deter people from becoming teachers.
Just at a time when we need the brightest and best to choose to teach as a career, the strikes are telling them it might not be for them.
Schools funding is approaching an all-time high.
Starting salaries for teachers will stand at £30,000 next year.
Teachers’ pay rises are properly set, as they have been for years, by an independent review body.
And we have a Prime Minister who is putting children’s education front and centre.
Over the years, I’ve met so many inspiring, dedicated teachers who have done so much to drive up standards and help our kids build bright futures.
Education has been a big national success story over the past decade, largely thanks to them.
Surely now is the time for that silent majority of sensible, committed teachers to ignore the commands of the hard-line union bosses and get back to doing what they do best.