Teachers warned national strike 'won't achieve anything'

Teachers who plan to walk out on Thursday in a dispute over pay may not achieve anything by striking, they have been warned.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) stoppage is expected to close scores of schools in England and Wales and affect many more.

The union has called the strike in protest at a 2.45% pay rise this year which it believes will make recruiting new staff more difficult.

The offer is fair and "at the top end" of public sector pay offers, the chief executive of the Local Government Association, John Ransford, said.

"This is just one union of the unions in teaching, others think this offer is fair," he told GMTV.

"We just think striking is not going to achieve anything. It's going to affect parents and it's going to affect students. It's very disruptive.

"We are going to have a very messy day on Thursday. That's not good for anyone."

Mr Ransford said the rise had been determined by an independent review so was not an offer for negotiation.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said yesterday that parents across the country would share his disappointment.

"I'm on the side of parents who will be disappointed if their children's education is disrupted on Thursday, because we have decided to accept an independent pay review," he said.

"The majority of teachers do not want to strike."

Ivan Ould, chairman of the National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers, which represents children's services authorities and local education authorities in England and Wales, said pay award was based on an independent body's recommendation and provides "a deal that is both fair to teachers and affordable for the taxpayer".

NUT acting general secretary Christine Blower said the strike was a "last resort".

"It is actually very much a last resort. It would have been nice if it could have been resolved by negotiations with Government but alas, it hasn't been able to be," she told GMTV.

"The thing is that teachers have had below inflation pay increases for the last three years and those are set to continue and the problem is not just teachers' pay it is also the fact that it is not attracting enough people to come in and want to be teachers.

"We already lose half of the people who start teaching in the first three to five years and teaching is under-recruiting for September.

"So we are saying, yes, it is about teachers' pay, but it is also about making sure there are enough people to replace our colleagues in those classrooms when they retire."

A company specialising in emergency child care reported today that it had experienced a five-fold increase in inquiries about temporary child care on Thursday.

Emergencychildcare.co.uk said most of the inquiries were from working parents who have not been able to take time off or find friends or family to look after their children.

Founder Ben Black said: "For many parents they have only just finished the Easter holidays so it is hard for them to take more time off work.

"A lot of people don't have family nearby so we are certainly seeing an increase."