The biggest teaching union today launched its preliminary strike ballot over the government’s recommendation of a 2.8 per cent pay award for teachers.
The NEU ballot asks teachers if they accept the Department for Education’s pay rise recommendation, and whether they are willing to take strike action to secure a higher, fully funded pay rise.
The union announced in January that it would launch a preliminary ballot. Its national executive has recommended that members vote that they are willing to take strike action.
The indicative ballot will close on Friday 11 April.
Ballot on teacher pay strike
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said: “Our members do not want to strike but ignoring the profession and backing educators into a corner means we will be left with no choice.
“The government was elected in the hope it would value education, but a 2.8 per cent pay award without funding does the opposite. Like the Conservatives before them, they are forcing schools to make more cuts.”
Mr Kebede warned that the pay award without funding for schools would “deepen the chronic recruitment and retention crisis” and mean more cuts in schools.
The NEU previously said that if members showed willingness to take industrial action, it would make a decision whether to proceed to a formal ballot at its conference in April.
The DfE recommended a 2.8 per cent teacher pay rise for 2025 in its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which was published in December. The submission said that many schools would need to supplement their funding for 2025-26 “with efficiencies” to cover a 2.8 per cent award.
The School Cuts coalition has warned that most schools would be forced to make cuts next year to afford the predicted increase in costs.
In December Mr Kebede said the NEU was “putting the government on notice” over the pay recommendation. Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, also said at the time that the recommendation of 2.8 per cent was “extremely disappointing”.
NEU members voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in an indicative ballot last year after the previous government recommended a lower pay rise than previous years. However, they then voted against moving to a formal ballot on strike action.
The DfE has said previously that it is hoping to announce the final pay rise “as soon as possible after April 2025”. The next step of the process is for the STRB to make a recommendation on the pay rise.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
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