An independent pay review body must be established to address the growing uncompetitiveness of teachers’ pay in Scotland, teachers at the Annual Conference of NASUWT Scotland, the fastest growing teachers’ union in Scotland and the largest in the UK, have argued.
Teachers at the Conference, which is being held today (Friday) and Saturday at the NASUWT Scotland National Centre in Edinburgh, highlighted the recent findings of the international OECD report into education policy in Scotland which found that teachers’ pay in Scotland lags behind the majority of other comparable nations.
The NASUWT rejected the 2015-17 pay and conditions ‘deal’ for teachers from local authority employers as inadequate and unacceptable to address the shortfall in teachers’ pay and working conditions since 2011.
NASUWT analysis has found that teachers at the top of the main grade scale have lost in excess of £17,200 since 2010 as a result of successive real-terms pay cuts and pay freezes.
Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said:
“The current teachers’ pay negotiating machinery is dysfunctional and has failed woefully to address the year on year decline in teachers’ pay. It has compounded the plight of teachers by also combining this with a deterioration in working conditions.
“The fact that teachers have been ill served by this process is evident in the fact that over two thirds of teachers have considered leaving the profession in the last twelve months, a rise of 7% since 2014 and increasing numbers of local authorities are struggling to find teachers.
“Strategies to address and manage teacher workload have shamefully been ignored by employers and the Government continues to fail to legislate to address this.
“An independent pay review body is urgently needed to address the issues around teachers’ pay which are contributing to the growing recruitment and retention crisis and jeopardising the provision of high-quality education for children and young people.”
Jane Peckham, NASUWT National Official Scotland, said:
“The NASUWT is continuing to pursue the reopening of negotiations on the 2015-17 pay award because of its gross inadequacy.
“The creation of an independent pay review body is urgently needed to ensure that teachers are recognised and rewarded as highly skilled professionals and that the profession can continue to attract and retain high quality recruits.
“The profession and children are ill-served by the current arrangements.”
