TEACHERS are plugging funding gaps in Wales with their own wages according to NUT Cymru.
The largest union for teachers in Wales has launched a survey to uncover the scale of the problem after an increasing number of teachers were reporting that they felt compelled to use their own money to buy vital resources for their classrooms and their pupils.
NUT Wales Secretary, David Evans, said: “We are continually being made aware of teachers who have spent their own earnings to plug gaps in education funding. From buying basic resources such as pens, books and furniture for their classroom, to spending on pupil welfare for new clothes, trips or food that they recognise some pupils desperately need. This anecdotal evidence is alarming and indicative of both an underfunded education system and communities suffering from years of public sector cutbacks.
“We’ve launched this survey as a way of putting hard fact to the human side of this concern. We are encouraging all teachers to take part to get the best possible picture of the scale of the problem. We want to know how wide spread this issue is, what sort of things teachers are having to purchase, how much on average they are spending and exactly how it is that the personal spend of those in the classrooms are keeping education financially running in Wales.”
