Wales teachers’ union tells Senedd hopefuls: set out your vision for education or risk failing a generation
Wales’s main classroom union is demanding all parties contesting the 7 May Senedd election set out how they will fund, resource and improve education before polling day.
NASUWT Cymru made the call at its Annual Conference, where delegates said the Welsh Government must evaluate the true cost of a properly resourced education system and commit to funding it in full.
Neil Butler, National Official for Wales for NASUWT, said the union was “deeply worried about the state of education funding in Wales.”
Schools’ financial reserves had dropped significantly in the last year, Mr Butler said, with even schools carrying high reserves making teachers and staff redundant.
He also pointed to what the union called a “wildly different” approach to school funding applied by local authorities, saying a pupil in one area of Wales can receive almost £1,000 a year more than a pupil in another, regardless of any subsidies for deprivation or additional learning needs.
NASUWT estimated that £500 million a year disappears into what it calls the “Middle Tier” of education-adjacent public bodies.
The union named Estyn, the education inspectorate, as costing £15 million annually, and Qualifications Wales at £10 million, but did not identify the bodies it said account for the remaining sum in its published figures.
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of NASUWT, told the conference: “When it comes to government funding, teachers and pupils in Wales are being short changed.”
“Last year, Westminster allocated £399 million to Wales to fund public services, but only £39 million — that’s 10% — actually made its way into schools’ core budgets,” Mr Wrack said.
“Education in Wales may as well be on life support,” he added.
He said governments that underfund systems for long enough “can forget what good looks like,” but that schools had not forgotten what success means for their pupils.
“Every day, they try desperately to do more with less,” Mr Wrack said.
“If the Senedd is serious about improving education in Wales, they need to take it as seriously as teachers do,” he added. “That means realistic levels of funding, applied consistently across local authorities, and nothing less than full pay restoration for teachers.”
An NASUWT survey found that 68.7% of primary school teachers and 54.3% of secondary school teachers in Wales said they were concerned about budget cuts, figures the union said were higher than in any other UK nation.
The same survey found 76.9% of teachers in Wales felt disempowered by constant changes, again the highest proportion of any UK nation according to the union.
NASUWT also said teachers’ pay is 20% lower in real terms than it was in 2010.
Mr Butler said: “With Senedd elections approaching, NASUWT Cymru calls on all parties to set out their vision for a world-class education system.”
“This is about long term investment and true ambition for Wales,” he added. “We want to know how education will be funded, how it will be resourced, and how – and when – improvement will be delivered.”
“Teachers and learners deserve nothing less,” Mr Butler said.
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