pay

I really want to write about teachers' pay, but I am overtired from teachers' workload! So here are some links instead.

The BBC reports on a 2.45% increase for 2008, announced today.
The National Union of Teachers reply by saying they will give a "robust response".

One issue about how the announcement is being taken is that the government is using CPI (Consumer Price Index) as their measure of inflation (see Ed Balls comment in the BBC article), whereas the NUT is using RPI (Retail Price Index) as its measure. CPI doesn't include housing costs, so surely RPI is a better indicator? This government page says that RPI is the measure that should be used for wage bargaining, but this is not what they are doing. CPI is currently at 2.1%, whereas RPI is at 4%. So this announcement means another below inflation pay rise for teachers.

The NUT will probably still ballot its members for industrial action, and if successful, hold a one-day strike.