Six unions call for pay increases above proposed 1% annual level, and warn more pupils are being taught by unqualified staff

Teachers’ unions are urging the government to ward off a “national crisis” in the profession, warning that increasing numbers of pupils face being taught by unqualified staff.

In an unusual joint submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) – the pay review body for England and Wales – six unions, including the National Union of Teachers, have combined to call for pay increases above the 1% annual level the Department for Education (DfE) is seeking to offer over the next four years.

The letter highlights widespread concern within education over looming problems with recruitment, as schools report difficulties in attracting and retaining staff along with the squeeze on school budgets, which remain frozen in England despite being expected to fund pay increases.

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“The STRB must accept that we are facing a national crisis, not ‘a challenge’ in teacher supply, which means more children will not be taught by teachers qualified in the subject they teach,” argues the submission, whose signatories include the National Association of Head Teachers and Undeb Cenedlaethol Athrawon Cymru, the national union of teachers of Wales.

“The public sector pay policy of the past five years has depressed teachers’ real earnings to the extent that recruitment and retention are being seriously harmed,” the letter concludes, saying that the DfE’s published data “has failed to capture the scale of the crisis”.

In response, the DfE said: “Unlike those who are constantly claiming there is a crisis and scaremongering, this government has worked with the profession to raise the status of teaching and is attracting the best and brightest to a career in the classroom, with the result that record highly qualified graduates and experienced career changers are now teaching in our schools.

“But we are determined to go further, and recognise that some schools find it harder to recruit the teachers they need, which is why we are expanding the great Teach First and Schools Direct [recruitment] programmes, and we are launching the national teaching service, which will mean more great teachers in schools in every corner of the country.”

The unions also claim that school budgets are “at breaking point”, requiring the government to fully fund pay increases and other costs such as national insurance increases coming in later this year.

“Four more years of pay austerity is a false economy,” said Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, which represents many secondary school headteachers. “We must be able to attract and retain the high-quality teachers and leaders we need to give young people a great education.”

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In last year’s budget the government announced a 1% pay rise for public sector staff, including teachers, while education secretary Nicky Morgan’s letter to the STRB said there “remains a strong case for continued pay restraint in the public sector”.

The government has pledged to maintain the level of total spending on schools in England in cash terms for the remainder of the current parliament, but increasing costs and rising pupil numbers means schools face a cut of around 8% in their budgets by 2020 according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The analysts warned that a 1% pay award would “ease the pressure on schools costs, but might make recruitment and retention of teachers and other staff more difficult”.

The STRB reviews pay and conditions for teachers in both England and Wales, acting on references by England’s education secretary, despite Welsh schools policy and budgets having been a separate responsibility of the Cardiff government since devolution.