The Strike Goes Ahead. This Is Why....

Members of the National Union of Teachers are on strike on April 24th 2008 to defend the education service. We have done everything we can to avoid it, but the Government will just not listen to us. They have cut our pay rates for the last three years, and now want to do the same for the next three years.

This is not just bad for teachers. The education service, our schools and our children will suffer. With declining pay rates, the best graduates will be discouraged from becoming teachers. It has happened before and will happen again when teachers’ pay has been cut in this way.

In the end it creates a shortage of teachers. This in turn creates very large classes. This means that lessons cannot be properly prepared and marked without teachers working about 60 hours a week. Large classes also mean that teachers cannot give children the individual attention they deserve – unlike the small classes in private education!!! Sometimes this results in bad pupil behaviour and classroom disruption.

Recently, teacher shortages and teacher workload became so bad that the government finally recognised it.

But they didn’t take steps to increase the number of teachers. They just changed the law, and allowed unqualified staff to teach your children – and paid them even less than teachers!

Please support the NUT Strike Action.

Regards,
Peter Smith