The Teachers union should sit in on some 5th form economics classes

So teachers want a pay rise.  This isn’t really surprising given the inflationary pressure in the economy.  Now I don’t know too much about teachers pay, but I did find it interesting that the teachers union is saying that teachers wages should increase by 7.5%, and that this would reduce the average size of the classroom.

We know why teachers are saying this, they want parents and students to support them, so they have to make it sound like it is in their interest.  However, this isn’t the way I understand the situation.  If teachers pay is increased, and the government does not completely fund it, then less teachers will be hired.  With less teachers and the same number of students, schools will ended up with more students per class.

One possible counter-argument is that we have a skill shortage for secondary school teachers, and as a result by increasing wages we can get more teachers into jobs.  This presumes that schools have the resources to hire more teachers, at a higher wage, which would imply that we have a shortage of secondary school teachers.  But we don’t.  We are on the border of having a shortage of teachers, schools can find the number of teachers they need, but it does take time (average fill rate for secondary teaching jobs is 70%).

As I doubt the government will be stump up all the cash for a 7.5% jump in teachers wages (there are other groups they have to bribe first and foremost), schools will be stuck trying to come up with more money to pay teachers.  Fewer teachers will be hired and class sizes will rise.