After teachers in England and Wales announced a seven-day strike in February and March, the secretary of education said he was happy to talk to teachers about money but failed to commit to reviewing salaries.
Gillian Keegan, who will meet with the teachers’ union on Tuesday, said she was “extremely disappointed” by the decision to strike, but said the government was ready to talk to teachers about the challenges facing the profession. .
After Rishi Sunak’s minimum service level bill, which limits strikes, passed its first stages overnight in the House of Representatives, Keegan has proposed not using the law to keep all schools open during the shutdown.
She said the focus on minimum service levels was initially designed for “health and transport,” but that future conflicts would be “especially for vulnerable children.” “That’s what we’ve learned so much during the pandemic,” she told LBC. “Yes, we are part of the bill.” Department, but for now, the focus will be on health and railroads first, and when we get to that stage, we’ll obviously see what makes sense.”
Action by members of the National Education Union began with a mass strike on February 1, coinciding with the trade union conference’s national ‘Protect the Right to Strike’ action day, followed by six days of local strikes.
The NEU, the largest education union, demanded a pay rise to outpace well-funded inflation after the government announced last summer that most teachers would receive a raise of about 5% and starting salaries would rise by 8.9%. bottom. %.
Keegan said she was willing to talk about money, but was in favor of salaries set by independent bodies in the country. “We talked about money,” she told Sky News.
“We didn’t negotiate compensation. That’s not what we should do. It was about discussing issues.”
Asked by the LBC if teachers are paid enough, Keegan said: Where we struggle a little more is math and science and computer science. So what we’ve done is prepare additional payments for them and also offer £27,000 stipends and stipends so you get more money for your fees That’s it.
“So we focused specifically on mathematics, science and computer science, as these are areas that are difficult to recruit. But they are still attractive occupations. But before the pandemic, we were pretty close to reaching our hiring goals.”
NEU strike date
February 1 England and Wales
February 14 wales
February 28th Northern England, North West, Yorkshire, Humber
March 1st East Midlands, West Midlands and Eastern Regions
March 2 London, South East and South West Regions
March 15th and 16th All eligible members in England and Wales
