SCHOOLS are “running on empty,” a teaching union has warned as teachers begin voting in an indicative strike ballot over pay, workload and funding today.

The National Education Union’s (NEU) ballot, which was announced in November following the autumn Budget, will be open until April 17.

The Department for Education has recommended teachers receive a 6.5 per cent pay increase over three years.

But NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said that expecting schools to fund the increase from existing budgets is “simply not possible.”

He said: “Schools are running on empty. The Treasury has made itself a laughing stock by claiming there are still efficiencies to be made.

“Chronic underfunding from successive governments has led to the severe crisis in our schools.

“Old equipment and broken furniture. Battered textbooks. Years of missed targets in recruitment have driven up workload, as have the numbers leaving and not being replaced.

“A failure to properly fund our schools also means fewer teaching assistants and larger classes.”

Mr Kebede said that rather than arresting the decline, Labour has “chosen Austerity 2.0,” adding: “This government has the brass neck to ask for more out of less.

“The results of that strategy will be worse for children, not better. It is time to stand up and save education.”

An NEU survey in January found seven in 10 teachers believed their school lacked funding for basic provisions.

Teachers were awarded 5.5 per cent for 2024-25 and 4 per cent for 2025-26, following strikes that secured 6.5 per cent in 2023-24.

The National Foundation for Educational Research found that starting salaries have returned to 2010-11 levels in real terms, but growth has lagged behind average earnings.