Page 7


FEATURE


Months of relentless cuts and reform

Teachers are facing attacks on all aspects of their working lives.


• Two-year pay freeze to begin from September 2011, which, given rises in VAT, National Insurance and the cost of living, amounts to a pay cut.
• Pension changes – proposals to increase contributions, raise the retirement age and end final salary schemes.
• Reducing the value of pensions of serving and retired teachers by changing the indexing from RPI to CPI.
• New barriers introduced to limit teachers’ pay progression on UPS.
• Abandoning national negotiating forums on pay and conditions of service.
• Excessive workload and working hours.
• Revised performance management arrangements.
• Introducing revised professional standards, against which teachers’ performance will be judged.
• Burdensome bureaucracy, for example, lesson planning and assessment.
• Punitive accountabilty measures.
• Denigrating the work of teachers and schools by misusing international data.
• Weakening and undermining the national pay and conditions framework and entitlements.
• Deep cuts to school budgets, causing job loss and job insecurity.