Teachers Strike over Unequal Pay for Graduates.

Teachers in the UK are striking due to low pay for new graduates.

Today, 500 senior schools are set to close due to staff striking over new
graduates not being paid as much as other teachers. This issue arose
despite the Government offering bursaries as an incentive to go into
teaching. The bursaries offered are largest for those who graduate with a
1st or a PhD, with Physics offering the largest amount of 30,000.
However, these bursaries are not available to all new graduates, but those
who have trained in a specific subject. Also, for some subjects, bursaries
are only available to those who have gained some sort of degree, ignoring
other qualifications.

Joanne Jennings, an infant school teacher, believes that newly qualified

teachers (NQTs) are not paid enough for what they have to do,
considering teachers now have many more safe guarding
responsibilities for the students they teach.

However, many teachers just take this on as part of the journey they go
on to become a teacher. Rachel Russell is one of them, and said that
teachers do get paid enough, but the biggest problem teachers face
isnt the pay. She feels teachers have a lack of freedom since they are
not trusted enough to do their job correctly. This problem of trust with
teachers will continue to get worse. In May this year, teacher Lauren Cox
was imprisoned for her affair with a 16-year-old student, and this is not
the first story where a UK teacher has been convicted of sexually
motivated crimes towards a student in the past decade.

Whether its the lack of trust or the bad pay, 60% of young people have
never considered a career in teaching. Something more than a bursary is
needed to prevent strikes such as this one in the future.

(300 words)