By Richard Johnstone
26 April 2011
Young teachers are set to lose almost £3,000 a year under pension changes and the government’s public sector pay freeze, a teaching union has said.
Figures released by the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers show that a first year newly qualified teacher earning £21,588 will lose £2,924 a year. This would be the effect of the 1% rise in National Insurance, the pay freeze and an expected increase in pension contributions.
The union says that teachers will lose out as they earn just above £21,000, the starting level for the pay freeze.
Speaking at the union’s annual conference in Glasgow, NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said: ‘The pay of young teachers has been effectively slashed.’
At a separate conference in Harrogate, the National Union of Teachers said it would ballot members on whether to strike over proposed changes to pensions. An announcement of a 3% increase in contributions from teachers is expected in June, which the union says is threatening them ‘with having to pay more for their pensions, work longer and get less in retirement’.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: ‘We've paid for our pensions and we deserve them. Now is the time to defend them.’
Also at the NASUWT conference, the union said that using staff without Qualified Teacher Status in the wrong circumstances ‘undermines the drive to raise standards’ in education.
The union believes that teaching assistants are being used to provide lessons full time by schools seeking to save money. This follows the decision by government that teachers in academies and new ‘free schools’ need not have the qualification.
‘By scrapping the national negotiating body for school support staff, the coalition has given schools a licence to misuse and abuse support staff,’ Keates said.
‘Support staff are valuable members of the education team and do an excellent job, but they are not trained and paid to be teachers. Schools are flouting the law and statutory guidance, and compromising standards.’
