Teacher pay increases capped in schools' funding shortfall.

More teaching posts may be lost in British schools as the government announces further limits to their funding this week. Education secretary Charles Clarke has already capped increases in schools’ spending at 4%, and is expected to announce a limit of 2.5% on teachers’ salary increases today.

The announcement has divided teachers’ unions. The NUT, Britain’s largest teachers’ union, is calling for a double-digit salary increase and an overall schools’ budget increase of 11%, while the ATL and NASUWT, have tentatively supported the government’s reforms.

NUT spokesperson Olive Forythe said: “a 4% guaranteed increase is insufficient to make good this year’s funding crisis and meet increased costs next year. More teaching posts will be lost. More pupils will be disadvantaged by classes being taken by unqualified persons.” She also said that the pay gap between teaching and other graduate professions is growing ever wider and that this freeze, “will make teaching less attractive and will cause teachers to be further demoralized.”

But Eamonn O’Kane, General Secretary of the NASUWT said the move would, “reassure schools that measures are being introduced which will bring a degree of stability for which they have been calling.” Neither union would comment on the issue of wage increases before today’s official announcement.

These measures aim to prevent a repeat of last year’s funding shortfall of £500m that resulted in the loss of over 8000 jobs in schools. In a statement issued last week, Education Secretary Charles Clarke said: “limiting central spending will address directly the problems of this year and help secure stability, and restore confidence in our funding arrangements for schools.”

Ralph Herron, headmaster of Chepstow Primary School, made one teacher redundant after a budget deficit of £38,000 last year and said current funding increases would be insufficient. “Next year I might lose another teacher because the budget will still be extremely tight,” he said. - Nov 2003