Reduce our pension age to 60 say teachers

TEACHERS say their pension age should be reduced to 60.

They attacked plans to extend the official retirement age to 68, saying the pressures of the job would make it ‘ an impossibility’ for many.

Delegates at the NASUWT union’s annual conference in Birmingham voted unanimously to campaign for teachers to have a normal pension age of 60.

This would separate the profession from the current pensionable age of other public sector workers. Teachers usually retire at 65 although many finish earlier.

Critics yesterday attacked the demand as ‘unrealistic’ and said pupils would ultimately have to foot the bill.

Last year, the Government revealed plans for the pension age to rise to 68 over two years from 2037, due to greater life expectancy. Presenting the motion, Candida Mellor, from North Tyneside, said: ‘It [the pension age] will be 68 when I access my pension – 21 years of teaching left. That seems like an awfully long time when I’m already feeling so exhausted.’

Rachel Watson, a teacher from Newcastle upon Tyne, told the conference: ‘How can anyone survive teaching until we are expected to? It seems an impossibility.’

The motion also backs industrial action, including strikes, to oppose further increases to teachers’ normal pension age.

Chris Keates, the NASUWT general secretary, said: ‘Teachers are increasingly burned out long before they reach 68.’ But Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, last night claimed that teachers were ‘not living in the real world’.

He said: ‘Someone has to pay for pensions and the people who are going to pay for those pensions are the children those teachers are now teaching.

‘We wouldn’t support piling debt on top of grandchildren.’

Teachers have vowed to scupper new tests for four-year-olds over claims they are ‘ immoral’ and could harm children’s mental health. The NUT is calling for a boycott of the Government’s baseline tests for children in reception.