Parents Should Applaud Teachers For Going On Strike, Not Curse Them


Teachers’ strikes are rarely welcome news for parents: as well as the lost education for their children, there is frequently the headache of arranging childcare as well.

But when it comes to the latest disputes, instead of cursing teachers, parents should thank them for standing up for education.

Thousands of schools will be affected after last minute talks failed to avert the first teachers’ strike in England and Wales for 15 years from going ahead tomorrow. Teachers in Scotland have already held several days of strike action this year, with more planned for next month.

These walkouts follow in the footsteps of teachers in the United States, who staged a series of strikes for higher pay and better working conditions last year.

In the U.K., teachers will join train drivers, university lecturers, civil servants and bus drivers in the biggest day of industrial action for more than a decade, with nurses also planning more walk-outs and firefighters voting for strike action for the first time in 20 years.

The teachers’ dispute is primarily over pay, after the Government offered a 5% pay rise, well below the level of inflation.

But it is not just about this year’s pay offer. Over the past 15 years, teacher salaries in England have fallen by 8% in real terms for experienced teachers and 4-5% for newer and less experienced teachers, according to analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

More than nine in 10 teachers in England and Wales voted for strike action. And although turnout in one of the teacher unions failed to reach the 50% threshold required for strike action, around 100,000 teachers are expected to strike.

Tomorrow’s action will be the first in a planned seven days of stoppages throughout February and March, although a program of regional action means no school will be affected by more than four.

For parents, the strikes mean disruption to their children’s education. And while this is regrettable, particularly for students who have endured Covid lockdowns, it is hard to believe that missing four extra days of school will make much difference.

But even if the strikes do adversely affect children’s education, the impact pales against the effects of starving schools of funds, and particularly the shortage of teachers.

Just as teachers’ pay has fallen in real terms, schools have been starved of funds, with spending per student in England falling 9% in real terms from 2009/10 to 2019/20.

This has forced schools to reduce spending on equipment and extra-curricular activities, with parents increasingly being asked for voluntary contributions to make up some of the shortfall.

But a far bigger concern is the effect of the funding squeeze on the number of teachers in the classroom.

After a hiatus during the height of the pandemic, the number of teachers leaving the profession has risen dramatically, at the same time as the number of people applying to become teachers has slumped.

Pay is just one factor in this, of course, but worsening conditions are also a product of a school system starved of funds.

The consequence of all this is that it is becoming increasingly hard for school leaders to fill teaching posts, and increasingly common that children will be taught by non-specialists, particularly in subjects such as physics, maths and computing.

All this means that teachers are not just striking to boost their wage packet, they are striking to boost the status of the profession, get more investment into schools, and put more teachers in the classroom. And for that, teachers deserve not our condemnation, but our applause.



Source link

Denial of responsibility! galaxyconcerns is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.