Teachers at Leicester school to strike over pay 'injustice'

Teachers at a Leicester school are set to go on strike over a government funding “injustice”. Members of the National Education Union (NEU) at Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I Sixth Form College (WQE), near Victoria Park, will strike for “fair pay and funding” for three days in November and December, the union said.

In July, the new Labour Government announced that schools in England would receive funding to cover a 5.5 per cent pay rise for teachers. Academised sixth form colleges were told by the government that they also would receive this funding. However, non-academised sixth forms such as WQE do not know whether they will be eligible, the NEU said.

This meant, the union said, that those colleges, of which there are 32 in England and which have seen their “funding cut in real terms year after year”, faced being “unable to fund the same pay rise" as other colleges, or having to implement "unacceptable cuts to their budgets” to foot the pay rise. The union said that "despite efforts" it had made "to resolve the dispute through clarification from the Secretary of State for Education" , it had received "no such clarification".

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The union said in a statement: “Teachers at WQE will join colleagues across 32 colleges round the country whose non-academised colleges face cuts to their pay and funding in comparison to academised sixth form and maintained schools. This follows the anomaly that funding for the teacher pay award of 5.5 per cent has not been given to non-academised sixth form colleges.

"This means that colleges who have seen their funding cut in real terms year after year will either be unable to fund the same pay rise as other teachers or face unacceptable cuts to their budgets." It said that "despite efforts by the NEU to resolve the dispute through clarification from the Secretary of State for Education that non-academised sixth form colleges could utilise the additional funding allocated to the sector in the Budget for staff pay", it had not received such clarification.

"Academised sixth form colleges had previously received funding to implement the same 5.5 per cent pay award as announced for school teachers," the union added. "This means that the teachers’ pay award will be properly funded at Gateway Sixth Form College, Leicester, but not at WQE.” The NEU said it represented “most of the staff” at WQE, and that 97 per cent of staff from the union had voted in favour of strike action.

Nick Raine, senior regional officer for East Midlands NEU, called the government decision an “injustice”. He said: “No teacher strikes lightly. NEU members at WQE are dedicated to their college, their students and the community they serve.

"The National Education Union has made every effort to resolve this dispute and we call upon the Secretary of State to rectify this injustice where non-academised sixth form colleges and their teachers are treated unfairly in comparison with colleges in maintained schools and academised colleges.”

Teachers and supporters will picket the entrances of Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I Sixth Form College, in Regent Road and University Road, on Thursday, November 28, Tuesday, December 3, and Wednesday, December 4 between 7.30am and 9am.

The Department for Education did not provide a further comment to claims made by the NEU when asked by LeicestershireLive. However it said that the Government does not set or recommend pay in further education and that sixth form colleges were responsible for their workforce's pay.

It said that last month's Budget had provided an additional £300 million to develop young people's skills. How this money will be spent and distributed will be set out "in due course" according to the department.

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