The next Government is being urged to deliver a New Deal on Equalities to tackle systemic inequality, discrimination and exclusion, NASUWT General Secretary Dr Patrick Roach will say.

At the NASUWT Equalities Weekend Conference in Birmingham, Dr Roach will tell members that a New Deal on Equalities must be central to restoring the future of our schools, colleges and the education landscape.

NASUWT wants to see the next government take decisive action that will include measures to:

• Tackle inequality and child poverty;
• Put equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of a national workforce plan to end the teacher recruitment and retention crisis and raise the status of the profession;
• Introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting requirements;
• Remove the demoralising and discriminatory requirement for performance-related pay in schools;
• Establish national pay scales and pay portability rights for teachers;
• Ensure equal rights for supply teachers.

At the ICC in Birmingham on Saturday and Sunday, members from across the UK will hear from a number of national speakers and take part in a range of workshops and CPD sessions.

Dr Roach said: “This should be the best country in the world for children to grow up. However, the last 14 years have seen children’s lives blighted by cuts to school and college budgets, the loss of services for children and families, and record numbers of children living in poverty and families struggling with a cost of living crisis.

“Over the last 14 years, teachers have also suffered with damaging cuts to their pay, ever-rising workload demands, and unfair treatment at work, which has resulted in the loss of many talented teachers and headteachers from the profession.

“At a time when we continue to see evidence of a deepening crisis in teacher recruitment and retention - with rising numbers of unfilled teaching vacancies and record numbers of teachers quitting the profession prematurely - we need a government that is on the side of our teachers and the pupils they teach.

“The opportunity at the general election on July 4 is for everyone who cares about education and children’s futures to vote for a government that will put equality at the heart of the national mission to secure a world-class education for all.

“We will be looking to the next government to work with us in the interests of all children, young people and their teachers and deliver a new deal on equalities..”