Support staff working in schools throughout Wales are raising awareness about pay and working conditions. They are drawing attention to the growing disparity between their pay and that of teachers. Rosie Lewis from Unison Cymru went on to raise one of the biggest issues raised. Countless support staffers are operating above their pay grade — literally — and in the process, they’re inflicting serious harm on them.
Julie Morgan, a former learning support officer from Bridgend, with 35 years experience. She pointed out that teachers like her got a 5.5% pay increase, but support staff only saw a 2.3% raise. This is a glaring chasm that greatly exacerbates the wage disparity between teachers and support staff. In reality, this means that most support staff are unable to make ends meet.
Lewis further indicated that many support staffers are making sub-minimum wage salaries. This headache was due to years of underpayment. This has caused many to be forced into taking second jobs just to survive. “Now to be in work poverty in that way… is a horrible situation for our members to be in,” Lewis remarked.
The predicament only deepens when one considers the precarious employment status of teaching assistants. They’re typically only paid for nine months out of the year. Their margins are distributed across twelve months, adding to the challenge of financial viability. Morgan shared her personal experience, stating, “We were a two-car family but we had to get rid of one of our cars because we couldn’t afford to run the two.”
The loss of income has taken a toll on the mental and emotional health of a largely marginalized workforce. Other schools — like these two in Cardiff — have set up food banks exclusively for support staff. Lewis highlighted this grim reality, stating, “Members are having to use food banks in the school to be able to put food on the table for their children.”
Morgan expressed frustration with the treatment of support staff, stating, “Everything’s gone up… compared to the teachers, we’re treated as second-class citizens, sometimes as skivvies.” This was a common sentiment among other undervalued teaching assistants who have always been there but are taken for granted.
Unison Cymru makes the point that conditions that support staff are under are vastly different than that of the teaching professionals they help so greatly. Lewis stated, “Our members are often working in a classroom with children on a very regular basis… when they’re at a level of teaching assistant where it’s not even permissible to do that on a short-term basis.” She went on to explain that a lot of support staff end up having to teach and doing so without being paid like a teacher.
The call for change is growing louder. Morgan knows that as it exists today, the system doesn’t value support staff as the backbone of our schools. “Teachers are already paid a lot more than us, so that gap between teachers and us is getting bigger and bigger, and yet we work so closely together,” she said.
Plaid Cymru are not just content to address pay disparities. They are calling for daring steps to make teaching assistant positions more attractive. Education entrepreneurs are deeply committed to transforming the education sector. They strongly urge the passage of bold proposals that would redress recruitment and retention challenges in this essential workforce.
