Government must look again at college teacher pay

Earlier this week, the new Chancellor confirmed £1 billion in extra money for schools to cover a 5.5 per cent teacher pay rise. But to the huge disappointment of the further education sector, there was no extra funding to allow colleges to match this offer.

When taken into context with the increase of 1.9 per cent in 16-18 funding and competing pressures on budgets, there is a real prospect of a lower pay award for college staff and a further widening of the pay gap between FE colleges with schools. This gap reached £9,300 in 2023/24.

Based on the calls we’ve received at AoC, college leaders are angry at this injustice.

AoC represents colleges in national pay negotiations with five trade unions, so before I say anything more on this issue, it’s important to state that it will be our Employment Committee, not me, who make the decision on the 2024/25 FE college pay recommendation. They will discuss this with the FE trade unions in September.

The Sixth Form College Association (SFCA) carries out a similar but significantly different set of discussions with a slightly different group of unions for sixth form colleges.

Whatever both sets of college negotiations produce, the way in which HM Treasury and the Department for Education handle issues like pay, funding and VAT creates a two-tier workforce in education: those who are paid significantly more because they work in schools, and those who are paid significantly less because they work in colleges. This works directly against the stronger push to provide opportunity for all.

There’s a lot to be said about England’s divided and fragmented education system but I think it’s helpful to be specific when it comes to the question of pay.

Like other public sector review bodies, the School Teacher Review Body (STRB) was created more than thirty years ago to reduce the likelihood of industrial action and to provide an evidence-based approach to decisions on pay.  

The STRB‘s latest report is a good read on issues facing the school teaching profession, but its remit means that it tells half the story when it comes to 16-19 education. There are 1.1 million young people in Years 12, 13 and 14. Less than half of them are in schools covered by the STRB.

There is no simple solution – but there are consequences

The DfE may address pay, recruitment, retention and other issues for the tens of thousands of secondary teachers teaching post-16 students, but it’s no good if it stays silent on those who progress to colleges or other providers after GCSEs.

For as long as I can remember, the DfE has relied on the STRB report to make cost-informed decisions on school funding. With school teacher pay accounting for 50 per cent of budgets, this is a sensible way to go. But why do something different in colleges?

There’s a more haphazard approach to 16-18 funding and this isn’t always a bad thing. The formula has weightings for higher-cost programmes and elements that take account of GCSE achievement.

However, the consistent suppression of core funding rates over a period of 15 years has had an impact on pay even when taking into account a couple of recent increases. This year’s 1.9 per cent rise – unless the institution is on the school side of the boundary – leaves very little for the major staffing challenges ahead.

There is no simple solution to these issues but it’s important to emphasise there are consequences.

Colleges battle the pay gap with schools every single day when trying to recruit and retain teachers. And it’s not just education pay we contend with, but the pay gap with industry too.  We want skilled, professional workers teaching our students in areas like construction, engineering and health science.

Many workers can earn much more outside education than within it. While there are many non-financial benefits to working in a college, it will be hard to prepare the workforce of the future on the rationed funds we have at present.

I’m confident that a serious-minded government will look at this issue in the next spending review but it’s hard not to worry that we’ve lost another year to a process that isn’t working as well as it could.