Teaching has surely become more difficult, with assaults by students increasing, more ready access to alcohol at a younger age, and a greater emphasis on student rights over student responsibility.
You can understand teachers being frustrated then when their working conditions, including limiting classroom size, is under threat. If classroom size is a determinant of educational achievement why should teachers need to negotiate it at all – shouldn’t it be a given that the Government would want to get the best possible results for students? When I go to negotiate my pay deal, I look for personal benefits – more holidays, better pay. It looks like teachers are negotiating, and striking over, conditions (such as preparation time, class size) that improve the educational outcomes of students. Surely they should be offered these as tools to help them with their job?
The teachers claims seem to be a mixture of personal benefit (pay increase) and conditions, that, while they make the job easier, are also of benefit to students. The dual outcomes of these claims have been largely lost in government statements, analysis, and comment on the negotiations.
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