“I want to see an education system … reject the logic of marketisation and instead build a system that serves communities — not shareholders.”
By Matt Wrack, General Secretary of NASUWT.
Across our schools and public services, the crisis is deepening. Teachers are exhausted. Support staff are stretched to breaking point. Children are being failed — not by those who work in education, but by a system that has been hollowed out by years of Tory-created austerity and fragmentation.
But depressingly the Labour government appear keen to continue with the damage done to our public services or, to give more credit, they lack the will or strategy to address fourteen years of attacks on public services. Either way, whatever ministers may claim, austerity has not ended. The Spending Review earlier this year confirmed what we already knew: pay rises for teachers, while they are welcome and are making some difference, are anything but fully funded. Schools are being asked to absorb a quarter of this year’s teacher pay award from existing budgets — a political trick that forces headteachers to choose between staff and support and either way, children lose.
Depressingly this isn’t new. For years, pay rises have been announced with fanfare, only to be offloaded onto schools already struggling to balance the books. In many of the most deprived communities, schools are told to make “efficiencies” from budgets already stripped to the bone. Teachers buy resources from their own wages. They stay late to help children who have nowhere else to go. They spot the signs of hunger and neglect — and step in where other services have been cut or scrapped.
And now, we’re told that the forthcoming White Paper will address SEND provision, raise standards, and make school a fulfilling experience for all. That all sounds welcome. But where’s the money?
Where is the investment in specialist staff, in inclusive classrooms and proper support for teachers, in mental health support, in the arts, in play, in joy? Where is the commitment to rebuild the infrastructure of education — not just the buildings, but the relationships, the trust, the sense of purpose?
Instead, we see a system fragmented by academisation, hollowed out by outsourcing, and riddled with profiteering. NASUWT’s Where Has All the Money Gone? 2025 report lays bare the billions siphoned from education into private hands. While politicians plead poverty, others profit from the very budgets meant to support and nurture our children.
But this is not just a funding crisis. It’s a crisis of vision.
I want to see an education system rooted in socialist values of solidarity, not competition. It would value every child, every teacher, every support worker. It would reject the logic of marketisation and instead build a system that serves communities — not shareholders. It should give children the broadest possible education in music, sport and the arts as well as preparing them for the world of work.
We need a national education service, publicly funded, democratically accountable, and free from the corrosive influence of private interests. We need to end the postcode lottery in SEND provision. We need to restore respect for the profession. We need to invest — not just in buildings and salaries, but in hope.
And yes, that means challenging the Labour government. Because warm words are not enough. If Labour wants to rebuild trust, it must break with the failed logic of austerity. It must stop asking schools to do more with less. It must stop pretending that progress can be delivered without investment.
Teachers are not just educators. We help build communities. With other public sector workers we carry those communities consistently and relentlessly — but we cannot carry them alone.
It’s time for Labour to choose: stand with the profiteers, or stand with the people. Stand with the billionaires, or stand with children and their families. Stand with the status quo, or stand for a better life for all.
- Matt Wrack is the General Secretary of the NASUWT education union. You can follow him on Twitter/X.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
At my primary school there were three nuns including the headteacher. The one in the infants used to give the extra school molmbto the two poorest children, give them clothes from the school thrift rail and even cut one of the girl’s hair…..
School milk! Sorry got autocorrected!
Sixty years ago in Canterbury, I looked at the churches, empty for much of the time, and wondered why they could not be used for teaching A Level classes?