Pay declining in real terms, working in crumbling buildings for exceedingly long hours – who would want to be a doctor or a teacher? Increasingly few apparently.
One in three medical students plan to quit working for the NHS in the first two years. And only half as many secondary school teachers started training than is needed this year. Since 2010, the numbers of pupils in state schools has been rising at double the rate of the teaching workforce.
In both professions staff shortages make work even more difficult for the remaining workers, and both new doctors and teachers have been among those taking part in the strike wave.
There needs to be serious action to save our services: investment in infrastructure, a reversal of privatisation and a decent pay rise. The so-called ‘fiscally responsible’ Labour front bench won’t fund these measures on the scale needed. The ‘responsible’ thing to do, if you are acting in the interests of public services and public service workers, is to take the vast hoarded wealth out of the hands of the super-rich capitalist class and put it where it is needed – into our schools and hospitals.
