Steve Scott , NEU Executive member, personal capacity, and Anna Scott, standing for election to the NEU Executive
National Education Union (NEU) members across the country are continuing our struggle against the government after they came to the table with a desultory offer. This was decisively rejected by members – by 98%!
Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak told the media ‘his door is open’ to the NEU, yet his education secretary doesn’t seem to have got that message. NEU members are making sure the strength of feeling of educators is in no doubt before the next round of talks!
NEU members are not just on strike for inflation-proof pay, but a fully funded education system. The battle is to save education from yet more rounds of cuts, whoever is in power.
School funding has been neglected for years, meaning schools cannot afford the resources they need to allow the pupils to learn. School budgets have been cut by 8% in real terms since 2010, with this figure rising starkly to 14% for schools in deprived areas. This disparity in education spending shows exactly what the Tories think of the importance of working-class children’s education.
There is a chronic shortage of teaching assistants and support staff who provide help to our most vulnerable children, from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. We have a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, meaning one in six students is taught maths by a non-specialist, and some primary school pupils don’t have a permanent teacher for the year. This year, fewer than 20% of the required number of physics teachers entered the profession.
You do not need to study maths to 18, whatever Sunak says, to know that if more teachers leave the profession than join, you are going to run out of teachers!
This crisis is only going to worsen as conditions in schools and colleges continue to decline, and pay fails to keep up with inflation. It is well known that this teacher shortage is hitting schools in the most deprived areas harder.
This is why teachers are striking, to defend education, and save our schools and colleges!
But we need to have a plan for what to do next. We need strong and decisive leadership through the period of exams, to ensure that despite the break in action – which Socialist Party members on the Executive argued against – members remain engaged.
It is going to be a huge task for local officers and reps to secure a successful reballot, required by Tory anti-union laws, to allow the dispute to continue in the next academic year if necessary. We need to fight on 2023-24 pay as well as continuing the fight for 2022-23.
Since starting the national fightback, the union has gained over 50,000 members and hundreds of new people have come forward to be reps. This shows that the best way to build a union is by leading from the front as well as organising from below. But it will still take detailed and hard work by reps and officers to make sure the reballot is a success.
We also need to reballot our support staff, who narrowly missed the Tory turnout threshold first time around, many of whom having joined the union to take action alongside teachers and play their part in saving education. Lots have already refused to cross picket lines, but delivering a successful ballot and calling all school and college staff out on strike together will send a strong message to the government! That will be even more effective if we seek maximum unity with other education unions as well.
We are serious, and we will win!
The following Socialist Party members are standing in the NEU national executive elections.
Re-elect sitting NEC members:
Sheila Caffrey, district 12
Sean McCauley, district 8
Steve Scott, district 3
Also vote for Anna Scott, district 3
If successful, they will join Louise Cuffaro, already elected unopposed, in district 16
