Following the the announcement of a 6.5% settlement for nurses and NHS staff, Britain’s largest teaching union is calling for a 5% pay rise for those in schools too.

The annual conference of the National Union of Teachers, shortly to merge and become the National Education Union, will consider a motion for a pay claim of 5% alongside other school unions, and ask that the increase be funded by the government rather than from existing school budgets.

Kevin Courtney, the union’s General secretary, backed the government’s ending of some austerity-era pay policies, but he warned that teaching in England was moving from crisis to catastrophe, as school staff looked at their long hours and compared working conditions with those of other professions with more generous pay.

He said: “There is some optimism in that the Government is starting to move. But we think when teachers around the country, and students considering coming into teaching, look at the salaries, they see it is not competitive with other graduate salaries.”

Read the full article in The Guardian.