Teachers at City and Islington college in Angel say they have been forced to take strike action

SIXTH-form college teachers were on the picket line this week as they demanded the pay rise given to every other teacher in the country.

After the government refused to offer a 5.5 per cent pay increase to staff at non-academised sixth-form colleges, teachers at City and Islington college in Angel say they have been forced to take strike action.

Pippa Dowswell, the branch secretary of the NEU who is a biology teacher, said that the union “can’t understand why they [the government] have done it”.

She said: “This is a fight they didn’t need to pick. They can’t make an economic argument for it because they’re paying the 5.5 per cent to all the other teachers in the country. We’re a drop in the ocean. So economically, there is no argument for it. Our negotiators have not been able to get a straight answer out of the government.”

Mike Govender, who has taught geography at City and Islington ­college for the past 16 years said the decision to leave sixth form college staff out of the pay rise was “ridiculous”.

He added: “We’ve had below inflation-linked pay increase, to the point that we’re well over 20 per cent worse off – in real terms – than we were in 2010.”

During his time as a teacher, Mr Govender said he has seen a “real erosion in terms of quality of education”.

He added: “It’s to do with funding. Money that was available for things like the education maintenance grant, money to offer a real diverse range of subject, it’s all to do with the funding to sixth-form colleges.”

Mr Govender explained that he had seen young teachers driven out of the profession, or having to commute from outside London – one from as far away as Birmingham – due to the low wages.

“We’ve had at least two or three in the last couple of years who decided they can’t manage in London so they have found accommodation outside of London,” he said.

“If you follow that story to the logical conclusion, if people in the public sector can’t afford to live in London, not just teachers, but people in the health sector, police sector, then they’re going to be forced out.”

Ms Dowswell said that she was not “hugely surprised” that Sir Keir Starmer’s government was coming up against the unions.

She told the Tribune: “I believe there are ­people who were very hopeful that when Labour came in, there would be a difference.

“I always believed that it would be a sticking plaster, and no major change that would affect people’s lives in a very positive way would actually occur. It’s exactly what we expected.”