A new Labour government could find itself facing a wave of industrial action by teachers in England and Wales if it fails to meet demands over pay and education funding, the leader of the UK’s biggest education union has warned.
Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), fired a warning shot over Keir Starmer’s bows, declaring that Labour’s current proposals on schools and education were “a long way” off the scale of change needed.
Addressing the NEU’s annual conference in Bournemouth on Saturday, he said the reforms required in the sector after 14 years of Conservative austerity could not be done on the cheap, warning: “We didn’t tolerate Tory cuts and we won’t tolerate Labour cuts either.”
Making his first speech to conference as general secretary, Kebede was scathing about the Conservatives’ record on education, accusing the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, and her predecessors of doing “an f-ing terrible job”, using her own vernacular.
Kebede was, however, keen, speaking in an election year, to send a message to an incoming Labour government that the NEU would not pull its punches in its fight for fair pay and funding in schools, whoever was in power.
After a recent indicative ballot, when nearly 150,000 teachers voted in support of industrial action, the conference decided to wait to see the government’s pay offer for teachers for 2024/25 before moving to a formal ballot on strike action.
The government has yet to publish the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), or its decision on whether to accept them. Last month, however, the Department for Education (DfE) said teachers’ pay awards should “return to a more sustainable level” which could be covered by existing school budgets. That has been taken to mean 1-2%.
In his speech, Kebede issued a warning to “this government, and any government that follows it” that “we are ready, we are prepared and we are able to take any further industrial action that ensures our members and our schools get the fair deal they deserve”.
The union chief listed Labour’s current pledges to increase the number of teachers by 6,500, provide free school breakfasts for primary children, replace single-word Ofsted judgments with report cards and review assessment and curriculum.
“While all of these are welcome reforms,” Kebede said, “they are a long way from the scale of change that we need to see in education”.
He said he was ready to work with a Labour government to “embark on a journey of renewal” and called on Starmer to make education the number one priority, with smaller class sizes, refurbished schools, free school meals for all primary schoolchildren and an end to the two-child benefits cap.
“We want an incoming government committed to making teaching a competitive career again, to address the recruitment and retention crisis. And we believe it is wrong that support staff are paid little more than the minimum wage.”
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has sought to downplay a Labour government’s ability to reverse Tory cuts in public services and increase investment, saying that the next government will inherit the worst set of economic circumstances since the second world war.
A Labour spokesperson said: “Boosting opportunity for every child through high and rising standards in education will be one of Labour’s five missions for government.
“After 14 years of stagnation under the Conservatives, Labour will be put education at the forefront of national life once again, so we can transform the life chances of children across our country.”
A spokesperson for the DfE said: “Our plan to raise standards across the education sector is working, which is why, thanks to the dedication of our hard-working teachers, we have a world-class education system where primary children are the ‘best in the west’ at reading and 90% of schools are now rated good or outstanding up from just 68% in 2010.
“Overall school funding is rising to over £60bn in 2024/25, its highest ever level in real-terms per pupil – and teachers have already benefited from two historic pay awards totalling over 12% in just two years.”
