TEACHERS at Carmel College will be on strike this Wednesday as part of action by the National Education Union.

Who will be striking?

NEU members at 16 Sixth Form colleges in the North West have voted to take strike action on November 30.

This will include staff from Carmel College on Prescot Road, and also nearby Winstanley College, in Wigan, which takes in some students from St Helens.

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In total there will be 77 Sixth Form Colleges across England taking industrial action on the day.

What is the dispute about?

The NEU says members have voted to take strike action in response to” an inadequate pay offer”  from the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA), which they say is well below inflation.

The union said 88.5 per cent of members voted yes in a statutory ballot to strike action.

The NEU claims sixth form college teachers have seen “a 20 per cent cut in real terms pay since 2010”. It adds the SFCA’s offer would see most teachers receive a five per cent pay award, rising to 8.9 per cent for a small minority.

The NEU says that sixth form teachers have declared that “enough is enough” and are calling on the Secretary of State for Education to fully fund their pay demand of an inflation-plus rise.

The union added that sixth form college teachers are “specialist practitioners, who deliver high quality academic and vocational programmes through A Level, T Level and BTEC courses”.

'Historic low pay and underfunding'

Commenting on the action, Peter Middleman, regional secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The Chancellor’s latest budget statement on November 17 did nothing to address the problems with historic low-pay and under-funding in the Post-16 sector.

“Like in primary and secondary schools, dedicated professionals in sixth-form colleges, who are preparing young people for the world of further study, vocational advancement and a challenging modern economy are being rewarded for their efforts with the largest real-terms pay cut in living memory and this is something our members are simply unwilling to tolerate from a government of millionaires and billionaires. The strength of the mandate for the strike speaks volumes: enough is enough.”

He added: “If the government led by Rishi Sunak is serious about a post-Brexit and post-pandemic recovery being based on rich-knowledge and high-skills, we need to see immediate evidence that they are prepared to release significant funding in order to help save the sector and ensure current and future generations have the same choice and opportunity for study that those presiding over the sector had in their own teenage years”.