Teachers at 32 Further Education (FE) Colleges have voted to strike over pay and workloads, with the University and College Union (UCU) committee meeting tomorrow to decide on the calling of action.
Meanwhile, schoolteachers at a school in Lancashire are to strike next month and in January against the ‘dystopian’ plan to employ a ‘virtual teacher’.
UCU members in 32 of England’s 68 FE colleges passed the required 50 per cent turnout threshold and backed strike action.
The UCU said 90 per cent of voting members supported strike action in a strike ballot following the ‘disappointing’ 4 per cent pay rise recommendation from the Association of Colleges earlier this year.
Jo Grady, UCU general secretary said: ‘College staff have turned out in huge numbers to show they are willing to down tools in the fight for decent pay and decent working conditions.
‘Thanks to the pressure of our strike ballots, we have also won pay deals at a further 17 colleges.
‘Other college bosses now need to look at those institutions, make staff fair offers that help close the pay gap between school and college teachers, and avoid the disruption of strike action.’
The UCU union’s ‘new deal for FE’ campaign includes pay parity with school teachers, a national workload agreement and binding national bargaining.
Meanwhile, school staff are set to strike for six days in December and January over the Star Academies’ Valley Leadership Academy in Bacup, Lancashire’s rollout of a ‘virtual teacher’ (VT) for its top set year 9 to 11 maths classes.
On Monday, NEU members voted in favour of striking, with an 82 per cent majority and they are to strike on Wednesday, December 3 and Wednesday and Thursday (December 10 and 11), as well as on three consecutive days 6-8 in early January.
NEU members at the school are calling for the scheme – which can see pupils taught by a teacher from hundreds of miles away – to be removed.
The NEU says teaching ‘is a relational human experience’ and children ‘deserve to be taught by a real teacher’.
Ian Watkinson, Lancashire NEU Branch Secretary said: ‘Children at the Valley Leadership Academy deserve to have the best educational experience: a teacher in the room who can help them to learn.
‘To avoid the need to strike, we call on Star Academies to remove the ‘virtual teacher’ programme from the Valley and to guarantee all pupils the basic right to be taught by a qualified teacher in the room.’
