Union slams more cuts in education
TEACHERS and parents sent a stark message to politicians that “education can’t be done on the cheap” as they gathered to protest against school cuts.
Dozens of National Union of Teachers (NUT) members gathered at Grey’s Monument in Newcastle to demand more funding for the North East’s schools and campaign against predicted cuts in education funding.
According to the National Audit Office (NAO), across the country, schools will need to find an extra £3bn by 2020 to continue offering their current services because a number of unavoidable costs will go up, with no extra money to cover them.
The union says this will mean increased class sizes, fewer subject choices, loss of teaching and support staff and fewer resources and out of school activities.
“Many schools are already at breaking point,” said Daniel Kebede, assistant secretary of North Tyneside NUT.
“These cuts will prove to be chaos for the education system.
“It’s incredibly difficult trying to provide the best for our children in a climate of continuing government cuts.
“Schools have already made efficiency savings, now they are faced with making more redundancies.”
And Beth Farhat, TUC Regional Secretary said: “Businesses constantly talk about the importance of young people being work-ready.
“You can’t do education on the cheap.”
The previous government recently implemented a new funding formula, which they argued addressed historic imbalances in how schools Teachers rally at the monument in Newcastle City Centre were funded, redistributing fund to give over half of the country’s schools more money.
But campaigners say that without an overall increase in the amount allocated to education, the new formula does little to address concerns.
NUT president Louise Regan told demonstrators: “Schools are already struggling – they’re losing staff and cutting subjects.
“Music, arts and drama will be the first things that are threatened, but these are the things that keep some children in our schools, that get them going in to school every day.”
One teacher attending the rally on Saturday was Ruth Ashford, who works at a Laygate Community School in South Tyneside.
She said: “In the last two weeks we’ve been told we’re going to lose two full-time teachers from September, and we’ve also lost two teaching assistants.
“We’re going to have bigger classes because of the lack of staff.
“Children’s mental health is a big problem at the moment – many need extra, skilled support, and it’s much more difficult for class teachers to handle their needs without support.”
According to the website schoolcuts.org, set up by teacher unions to highlight the predicted cuts, Newcastle is set to lose £416 for every pupil, or the salaries of 359 teachers, by 2020.
In North Tyneside, it’s 284 teachers, a £10,584,488 budget cut in three years. NUT president Louise Regan at the rally