Strike Action?

The National Education Union (NEU) intends to formally ballot its members for strike action over pay and funding.

The move is considered premature by many as the outcome of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) report and its recommendations on teacher pay is still awaited. Then the government will make a decision on future pay rises and how they will be funded.

However the NEU have said that early reports indicate this “will not result in a fully-funded pay offer for teachers that exceeds inflation, nor in sufficient funding for schools to prevent redundancies and rises in workload”.

The union have said that the ballots of teachers and support staff across England’s state schools will take place in the autumn if the government does not take urgent action to address these issues.

The education secretary is reported as stating that the action was “irresponsible and massively premature”.