Teachers are facin’ “dystopian levels” of stress, with nearly three out of four pondering on quitting, a union’s alerting us today.
NASUWT’s head honcho Patrick Roach is pointing fingers at the Government for making “teaching a job that’s no longer doable for a decent life”. The teachers’ union is asking its members if they wanna take action over their pay and how much they gotta work.
They’re gonna spill the beans on the consultative vote results – which might kick off an official strike ballot – at the NASUWT get-together in Harrogate this end of the week. A survey of more than 7,000 NASUWT folks in England from January to March showed near three in four (73%) have seriously thought ’bout bailing in the last year.
Out of the ones thinking about quitting, half are saying pay’s the culprit. Almost nine out of ten (89%) are stressing about money, as close to one in 10 (11%) found themselves needing a side hustle. Over one in four (28%) say they’ve had to lean more on credit cards or snag a payday loan in the past year.
Dr Roach goes, “Teachers in the UK are drowning in wild amounts of work and stress that’s work-related. They can’t keep this up much longer without some changes in their pay, their workload, how long they work, and their rights at work.”
About 40,000 teachers dropped out of the game last year – that’s like 9% of all teachers – the Department for Education (DfE) stats say. Dr Roach adds, “Schools just can’t run without teachers, and our kids need their teachers’ care and smarts to do well, but we’re on track to not have enough of ’em.”
A person from the DfE chimes in: “We’ve actually got more teachers now than ever, with over 468,000 in the mix, up 27,000 since 2010. Just last year, we handed out the biggest raise for teachers in over three decades, with newbies starting at £30,000.
“We’ve just thrown our two cents to the independent pay review folks to help them figure out teacher pay for 2024/25. We’ll get back on their advice in the summer, following the regular drill. Plus, we’re on it with making teachers’ workload lighter, which includes helping schools shave off five hours a week from teachers’ work time.”
