BRITAIN’S biggest education union raised doubts today over Labour’s manifesto pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers and warned any incoming government will face a strike ballot should it fail to offer a backdated above-inflation pay rise by September.
National Education Union (NEU) general secretary Daniel Kebede said “cowardly” Education Secretary Gillian Keegan had refused to publish an independent pay recommendation and would be leaving the dispute in Labour counterpart Bridget Phillipson’s in-tray.
He said his union will be ready to demand “immediate” publication of the School Teachers’ Review Body Report in full after the July 4 general election – and enter pay negotiations ahead of a snap poll of its pay offer in September.
Mr Kebede warned NEU members would be “left with no choice” if the government’s offer does not take steps to restore teachers’ pay to a level that halts the haemorrhaging of staff.
“We are in the midst of a very deep recruitment and retention crisis at the moment,” he told the Morning Star.
“We need 30,000 teachers to return the pupil-teacher ratio back to normal – we need a pay award that’s inflation-plus to take some steps to fix this.”
Mr Kebede said the independent Houghton Commission dealt with a similar teacher recruitment crisis and high inflation in 1974, resulting in teacher pay rises of 28 and 29 per cent in England and Scotland.
“We are not expecting a pay award of that significance, however what we do need to see is a government that is willing to invest in education and teacher pay and restore the status of the profession over the course of a parliament,” he said.
“Bridget recognises … that there needs to be a shift in the direction of travel – the best way for her to do that is to signal to the profession that she is willing to restore pay over the course of the parliament and establishing a commission is the best way to do that.”
The NEU leader also urged the government to increase education spending from 3.9 per cent of GDP to the recommended OECD level of 5 per cent – an extra £20bn.
He said that with a shortfall of more than 33,000 teachers, “unless there’s a real shift in pay for teaching, unless teaching is made a profession which is compatible with family life, it’s going to be very difficult for an incoming government to recruit those 6,500 teachers.
“I certainly don’t mean to be pessimistic but there are things that we could certainly welcome from a Labour government.”
He also criticised Sir Keir Starmer’s “shameful” failure to commit to removing the two-child benefit cap, saying: “It does not cost a lot to do that in government spending terms – small change – and child poverty costs the Treasury £38bn a year.”
He said he couldn’t mark Labour’s manifesto out of 10 due to the lack of detail, adding: “I hope that Labour are under-promising with the intention to over-achieve.”
