The head of the country’s biggest teaching union has described the mood among teachers as “desperate”, as members prepare to decide whether to ballot for strike action.
Speaking on the first day of the NEU annual conference on Wednesday, general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “The profession is very much on its knees, morale is at an all time low…Quite simply if we continue in this direction of travel education will grind to a halt.”
He added: “I would say there is a mood of desperation if we are being honest.”
NEU members have already backed strike action over pay in an indicative ballot.
Members will decide on Thursday whether to hold a formal ballot on strike action, in a debate at the conference in Bournemouth.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today Programme on Wednesday, Mr Kebede said: “I don’t want to pre-empt conference - there will be a full debate on the next steps in the campaign for pay and funding on Thursday. But I do say that Gillian Keegan should take the preliminary ballot result very seriously.
“We are a union of half a million members. To get over 50 per cent of members voting at a rate of nine in ten for strike action is incredibly significant.”
NEU members walked out for eight days over pay last year.
The latest indicative ballot only just reached the turnout threshold that would need to be met in a formal ballot to authorise walkouts.
The turnout was 50.3 per cent. In a formal ballot, unions must achieve a 50 per cent turnout and have 40 per cent of eligible members voting in favour to call legal strike action.
In the indicative vote, 90.3 per cent said they supported strike action.
In last year’s formal ballot, that ended with strikes in schools across the country, 90.44 per cent voted to strike, on a turnout of 53.27 per cent.
Speaking today, Mr Kebede said: “We absolutely want to avoid the disruption of last year and that’s why I would like to speak with the secretary of state urgently on the issues that concern my members.”
It comes as results of a survey into the wellbeing and workload of 8,000 NEU members found that 41 per cent described their workload as “unmanageable”, while a further 37 per cent said it was “only just manageable.”
Just one per cent of respondents said their workload was manageable all the time.
The ‘State of Education’ survey looks at the views of NEU members who are working teachers, support staff and school leaders. Findings are being released over the course of the NEU’s conference in Bournemouth this week.
The survey also asked members to say what would improve their wellbeing in the coming year. More than 80 per cent of respondents said tackling workload would make a big positive impact.
