Teachers In England May Strike Over Budget Cuts

Teaching associations and unions have responded to proposed budget cuts in schools and colleges by suggestion strike action may be taken. Many are clearly unhappy with the move by the government, stating that strike action is the most likely direction they will take.

The move came after an increased amount of young people applied for higher education and caught the government of guard. Rather than commend the schools for encouraging more young people to head on to college, the government have instead said that they will have to make up a £200m shortfall.  This will likely put the future of as many as 50,000 young adults in jeopardy, lead to a decrease for school bursaries, and will mean that many will have to look for paid work instead. Given that the current economic climate is high unstable, this worries many in the education sector.

The National Union of Teachers have slammed the decision, calling it “completely disgraceful”. A ‘lost generation’ is what they think will be the result of this, simular to the situation with school leavers in the 1980′s. “This would not happen in independent or indeed private boarding schools and should not happen in the state system” they said. The cut came about as a miscalculated estimate on the percentage of young people who would choice to continue on to colleges, sixth forms or paid training schemes. Many of these places have now received around 4% less money than they first thought and will be forced to save the money by scrapping courses and possibly teachers jobs.The NUT annual conference in Wales is where the issue was first addressed and lots of speakers voted for strikes at the educational institutions that were affected

A clear acknowledgement of the problem has been made by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, who has said schools face a dilemma about whether or not they can fund college students this year. He claims that the cause for the rise in higher education program applications is down to the poor job market putting people off entering work. He has made the point that due to the recession, their are not as many job opportunities out their for school leavers and so many are deciding to stay on