The problems in the education sector at the moment are so much more than a pay dispute.
You only need to look at our recruitment crisis to see how a multitude of massive issues are impacting schools. Simply put, things are bad.
A third of all teachers who qualified in the last decade have left the profession – according to a Labour analysis of Department for Education (DfE) statistics – and a poll from last April found that just under half of teachers who are still in the classroom plan to leave in the next five years.
If we can’t replace or retain those thinking of leaving, then what will happen to the next generation of children?
In fact, the crisis has reached such an alarming point that the Education Committee – which scrutinises the work of the DfE – has this week issued an enquiry into why state schools are struggling to recruit and retain teachers.
Of course, this is against the backdrop of the Government still refusing to provide the fully-funded pay rise in line with inflation that teachers and unions are calling for.
It’s true that the recruitment crisis is not simply about money, but we can’t begin to consider what is happening to education without talking about funding – the funding of wages, yes, but also resources, school budgets and the specialist support needed for the most vulnerable.
Fair wages that not only reflect the cost of living but also the years of study and training required to become a teacher means more people will stay in the profession. It’s as simple as that.
Teachers are some of the hardest hit public sector workers in terms of pay in line with the cost of inflation – as put to the Education Secretary on Sky News on Wednesday night.
And yet Education Secretary Gillian Keegan’s response was to throw a one-off £1,000 at teachers and offer a further unfunded pay rise, which is impossible for schools to meet when they’re already struggling to keep the lights on or hire enough teaching assistants.
But even a dramatic pay rise would not automatically fix the problems in our school systems without tackling the deep root of a decade of austerity and an increasingly hostile environment in many schools.
Our workload as teachers has risen to a scale that is simply unsustainable and unhealthy, pushing many of us to breaking point and creating a mental health crisis amongst teachers at large.
Whether it’s the curriculum becoming ever-more rigid, league tables putting schools at direct competition with each other or the intimidating shadow of Ofsted that hangs over every school, it feels like being a teacher means being in a constant state of stress and anxiety.
After the tragic suicide of a headteacher in Reading, whose school was downgraded by Ofsted, the public perception seems to finally be catching up with what many of us in the profession have been saying for a long time: that a system predicated on catching our individual teachers with the ability to destroy careers and reputations in a single one-word judgement is dangerous and unsustainable.
And that’s before you consider the way that many schools – particularly high performing academies – adopt policies towards their staff that are nothing short of inhumane and militant, from some reports of preventing teachers from attending hospital appointments in school time to directly discriminating against new mothers or pregnant women in the workplace.
Any teacher will tell you of the horrors we are expected to endure that simply wouldn’t fly at any other place of work. Last year, a study found that a sobering 78% of school staff experienced intense stress due to their work.
I see this replicated in my everyday life. I know of teachers crippled by anxiety and depression due to their treatment at work or the stress of the job. I myself have been in their position.
Doubling our pay wouldn’t offset the bullying culture in some schools or the stress placed on us by our leaders to be educators, social workers, child psychologists and police officers rolled into one.
Of course, some might say it’s hardly the government’s fault that some schools treat teachers as disposable robots – and maybe that is so – but it is undeniable that their decade-long campaign of austerity has created its own insufferable conditions.
Cuts to public services for children – like the decimation of youth centres, closure of libraries or the erosion of Sure Start for early years – means that teachers have to take on the extra load that could be shouldered by others.
Leaving teachers minimal room to teach, we are dealing with the impacts of structural poverty, youth crime, and homelessness in our classrooms because, simply put, there’s nobody else to do the job.
Add to this how our class sizes are growing ever bigger as schools struggle to fill the vacancies caused by our colleagues leaving in droves, and you’ve got a reality where 35 students with varying needs are being taught by one very stretched adult in the room, themselves likely working for a wage that they can barely feed their family on.
At a time when everyone is struggling, it’s tempting to look at the ongoing industrial action in schools as excessive or even misplaced. I’ve certainly heard people in my own life asking why teachers are so special that their dispute about pay should disrupt the learning of children.
But it’s not about being greedy for more cash.
Teachers are the ones who teach all other future professions, who equip children with the skills they’ll need to run our country and cure our diseases and create the inventions of tomorrow.
When we don’t pay teachers enough, it’s not just teachers themselves we impact (although we need to pay our bills and feed our kids too), but it’s our entire society that we put at jeopardy.
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