Unions demand 5% teacher pay increase

A coalition of teacher trade unions has urged education secretary Gavin Williamson to almost double the government’s pay offer to their members.In a letter to him they have said the 2.75 per cent offered was inadequate and asked instead for 5 per cent. The letter has been signed by the general secretaries of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the NAHT headteachers' union, the NEU teaching union and Voice.They said that although the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) had recognised there were serious and deepening teacher recruitment and retention problems, the 2.75 per cent increase would be below both inflation and the rate of pay increases in the wider economy. The letter said the STRB had made a clear link between recruitment and retention problems and teacher pay, noting “evidence relating to pay shows teachers at all career stages lagging behind other graduate professions”.It said the STRB’s 2.75 per cent recommendation “must be seen in the context of the lengthy period of real-terms cuts in teachers’ pay and the worsening position against other graduate professions and other groups in the wider economy”.