Mick Whale and Ken McCall (Joint Hull NEU secretaries)
Education requires an additional £7.4 billion funding just to stand still. Anything less will mean cuts. The situation is already desperate. A decade of Tory austerity has now led to a ‘perfect storm’ of further problems: spiralling inflation, an unfunded pay rise, the specific rise in heating bills, and staff leaving education because of a combination of workload and unrealistic targets. At the same time, Covid and other illnesses are causing significant staff absence. School budgets are stretched further paying for additional supply staff.
All this means that head teachers are starting to prepare staff restructures, in effect staff redundancy plans. Teaching assistants who provide a vital role supporting pupils with special educational needs are usually first in line for redundancy. Some schools are already looking at how they can amalgamate classes to make a teacher redundant. There is a fear among higher-paid teachers, particularly those on the top of the pay grade, that their jobs are the most vulnerable.
While individual education staff stand to lose their jobs, let’s not forget the generation of school students who face less support in school. And never has the need for additional support been more needed. Poverty does not stop at the school gates!
Hungry pupils from families that are struggling to put food on the table and children traumatised by experiencing the impact of poverty on family life need the food and security that school brings. Yet it will be the poorest and most vulnerable pupils that will lose out the most.
Quite correctly, the trade unions that are balloting for action for an above-inflation pay rise have made it clear that this needs to be fully funded. Undoubtedly, the Tories will try to sow divisions between school staff and the communities they serve. They will argue it’s either a pay rise or cuts to jobs and resources. But, we need to be clear, a properly paid workforce with high morale is vital if education is going to be successful.
School leaders should use the powers they have to protect jobs and services, including the setting of deficit budgets. Local authorities and multi-academy trusts must publicly support this approach. The real choice is between properly funded education and a Tory government that continues to impose austerity on the poor while allowing the super-rich to get richer. That is why the education unions need to develop a joint campaign, linked to the other unions battling to defend their services. Such a campaign could organise coordinated strike action across the country to force the Tories out.
