Teachers must realise they’re not in a class of their own

Leaving aside, for a moment, legitimate questions about the public finances, inflation and the role of education in society, it cannot be right that many teachers in England and Wales feel that the cost of living crisis and increasingly heavy workloads are driving them out of their vocation.

So much so, indeed, that they have embarked on a series of strikes that will undoubtedly hurt children, inconvenience parents and cost the teachers themselves about seven days’ pay. It is sad, and regrettable, that the teachers have decided to strike because, as they would acknowledge, it means real disruption and hardship to the families affected. Experience during the pandemic proves that it is the poorer children who are disproportionately damaged by interruptions to their schooling.

As the education minister Nick Gibb, one of the most moderate and thoughtful members of the government, points out, every day lost in a child’s education is a lost opportunity. The teachers are understandably frustrated, but was there no way they could push their argument short of industrial action?

Undervalued (literally) for too long, the teachers say their action is not just about their pay, but much more than that. Even parents sometimes seem not to understand quite how many hours teachers spend away from the classroom preparing lesson plans, marking, writing reports, tabulating performance and, in some cases, subsiding school budgets with their own money by buying classroom supplies.

Discipline is a particular problem in some places, exacerbated by the arrival of digital distractions. Teachers are under far more personal scrutiny and, rightly, required to understand more about special needs and behaviour-challenged pupils than in the past. In terms of such responsibilities, accountability, and sheer out-of-class time, the profession has moved far behind some of the lazy assumptions that date back to decades past.

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The strikes have brought to the surface disturbing stories about teachers with no qualifications beyond GCSE/O-level taking classes in mathematics or chemistry. There is no surprise that there is such a problem in motivating, recruiting and retaining teachers.

This cannot be good for the development of the nation’s children or its economic future. As with so many other parts of the public sector – such as in the NHS and the armed forces – successive governments have asked teachers to do more and more with less and less. The results are apparent.

As the prime minister says, the government has pushed through higher starting pay for teachers, there are bursaries for trainees in shortage subjects, and heads’ salaries have been boosted; but mainstream teachers’ real terms pay has fallen behind, and there are severe shortages in the STEM disciplines.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, senior teachers have suffered a 13 per cent real-terms drop in salaries between 2010 and 2022 – equivalent to a £6,600 pay cut. Their salaries and status – once, decades ago, on a par with, say, solicitors – have now fallen ludicrously behind.

The question is money; or, more accurately, how much the nations’ taxpayers – parents or not – are prepared to pay for their children’s future. Teachers accept (as do nurses and doctors in their own disputes) that it is not simply a matter of the “headline” pay rise, but about conditions, covering for vacancies, and unpaid overtime that abuses goodwill and professional dedication.

There seems to be a lack of strong financial incentives for teachers to perform, to chase promotion, and to develop their skill sets; this includes those needed in more challenging environments, often in areas that have been “left behind” economically.

In particular, the numbers of science and technology teachers willing to stay in the profession remain below levels that will help British commerce and industry in the future. If the government is serious about boosting the lamentable productivity of the British workforce, and thus wages and living standards, then it needs to keep its brilliant and dedicated teachers where they belong: in the classroom.

The first step now is for Gillian Keegan – the education secretary – to have a dialogue with union leaders. It needs to be a dialogue of listening, however, and the leaders of the National Education Union are seasoned enough to understand that they will not win all their demands. The government, and the country, are in a difficult, if not impossible financial position.

The independent pay review body for teachers recommended a 5 per cent rise, and the teachers have to recognise the fact that the case for higher pay made by NHS staff and others is also adding to the pressure on the public finances. In a world of finite resources, difficult choices present themselves to all sides. Compromise, in other words, is inevitable, and the more quickly both sides see that the better and children can resume their learning.