Schools across Greater Manchester are set for major disruption as teachers take strike action. Members of the National Education Union (NEU) are taking industrial action as part of a dispute over pay.
The union says it follows real-terms pay cuts over more than a decade, while the pay rise offered to teachers this year is well below inflation. Teachers across England and Wales will be taking part in the strike action, including around 12,500 NEU members in Greater Manchester.
Hundreds of schools will either close their doors fully or partially to certain year groups for the first day of strike action tomorrow (February 1). Talks with the Department for Education to avert the strikes failed to reach a breakthrough yesterday.
READ MORE: The Greater Manchester schools closed on Wednesday as strike action hits classrooms
The NEU has announced a total of seven strike dates over the next couple of months. However, schools and families in Greater Manchester will only need to prepare for three of those days, with the additional dates affecting other parts of the country.
Wednesday, February 1 is the first strike date. All eligible members of the NEU will be walking out across England and Wales on that day.
For Greater Manchester, there are three more dates for the diary. They are Tuesday, February 28, Wednesday, March 15, and Thursday, March 16.
February 28 will see NEU members across the north walk out. March 15 and 16 are for all eligible members in England and Wales.
Outside of Greater Manchester, teachers in Wales will walk out on Tuesday, February 14. Teachers in the midlands and the east will walk out on Wednesday, March 1, while teachers in London and the south will strike on Thursday, March 2.
Following yesterday's failed talks with the DfE, NEU joint general secretaries Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney said: “The Government has been unwilling to seriously engage with the causes of strike action. Real-terms pay cuts and cuts in pay relativities are leading to a recruitment and retention crisis with which the education secretary so far seems incapable of getting a grip.
“Training targets are routinely missed, year on year. This is having consequences for learning, with disruption every day to children’s education.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told the PA news agency: “Children were some of the hardest hit during the pandemic when schools needed to be closed. To have the ability to get into classrooms taken away from them again is particularly difficult.
"Obviously it has a knock-on impact on parents who will have to scramble to get childcare. So, it is very disappointing."
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