Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Striking teachers take to streets again as dispute goes unresolved
Hundreds of teachers across Kent and Medway took to the streets of Canterbury again in their ongoing row with the government over pay.
The action last Thursday was the second time in a month the National Education Union had “regretfully” pulled its members out of classrooms, leaving some schools forced to close or cancel classes.
They took part in a protest rally in the city that started at the Westgate Gardens at 11.30am and made its way through the high street and into the Dane John Gardens. It came after a similar protest on February 1, when members of the NEU supported the first teaching strike in decades, with an overwhelming number of teachers and educational professionals flocking to the streets of the city to protest. The teachers are demanding an above-inflation pay rise, but say no offer was forthcoming from the government at a meeting on February 15. National Education Union branch secretary Chris Lilley said protesters had descended on Canterbury from as far afield as Maidstone, Hastings and Medway.
He admitted activists “don’t want to continue doing this, but we think that at the moment it’s the only thing that gets the attention of the government”. Mr Lilley also said the strikes will “keep going for as long as it takes,” adding: “We’re ready to negotiate and go back to the table”.
Among those at the latest rally was Jack Marsh, who teaches at Glyne Gap School in Bexhill.
He said: “People are coming here to join together, to let everyone know we’re not happy with the way the government are funding schools.
“I believe my school has had the same funding that it got 10 years ago, but the cost of everything has gone up. “We’ll strike until they listen, until at least the general election and the current people are out of there.
“Get off the fence, get off your bottoms and put your feet on the street, make your voices heard. We’re all in this together except for the elite few.” Protesters could be seen marching through the city holding placards saying “we work at least 15 hours per week... then we get to school” and “teachers wanna have funds”. Another was spotted with a sign stating “we are skipping our lessons to teach you one”. During the protest, fellow teacher Poppy Jones, of Ark Castledown Primary in Hastings, told the Gazette colleagues are given “no equipment - the technology is awful”.
She added: “For secondary schools in particular, the workload isn’t correlating to the amount of pay we’re getting. “The system is not working.” During the march, campaigners could be heard chanting: “Hey Rishi, you’re so tight, you’re so tight you make me strike”.
The regional secretary of the NEU, Maria Fawcett, blamed education secretary Gillian Keegan for “doing nothing to resolve our dispute”. “Our members have broken through the threshold for ballots,” she said.
“They have bravely taken strike action already. The strength of feeling is all too clear. Enough is enough. “We regret having to take strike action and the disruption it causes, but it is also self-evident that disruption to education is now part of a pupil’s daily life. “This is the point we have repeatedly made to the education secretary.
“It is time for her to come up with solutions.”
During the February 1 strikes, Andrea Kite, NEU rep and teacher at St Anselm’s Catholic School in Canterbury, was with colleagues on the picket line outside the secondary in Old Dover Road.
She said at the time: “If this pay rise isn’t fully-funded by the government, it comes from our school budget which means that we’ll have less money available to do the things that we really want to do with our students. When staff leave mid-year they won’t be replaced, and that’s the issue.”
Get off the fence, get off your bottoms and put your feet on the street, make your voices heard. We’re all in this together except for the elite few...