How the crisis is affecting teachers

One in ten teachers in British schools has to take a second or even a third job to feed his family amid the economic crisis in the country. This was reported on Sunday by the weekly newspaper The Observer, citing research by the teachers' union.

It is noted that the 5-8% pay rise for teachers announced by the British authorities will not help them much, given inflation rates in excess of 11% on an annual basis.

The CEO of Galaxy Trust said that one of his schools was doing private tutoring. Also, he said he has a teacher who has to do extra work besides teaching.

According to his information, teachers in their spare time are starting to moonlight as taxi drivers and bartenders, and giving private lessons more often. In addition, an increasing number of teachers are taking advantage of the on-site food banks that were originally set up to help students from poor families.

He said: "They are worried about money, there is a heavy reliance on public transport as some cannot afford to drive their own cars. It's about working to survive rather than working to prosper."

General secretary Patrick Roach of the NASUWT, said that, more and more teachers were having to take on extra work.

Patrick Roach said: "Teachers say they are burned out from working harder for a small salary."

It is worth noting that a survey from Education Support (ES) will be published on Tuesday, which could see that stress is on crisis proportions, with more than half of educators wanting to leave their jobs.

Earlier, the London-based Centre for Economic and Business Research warned that Britain was at risk of the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s due to the crisis in Europe's energy markets. According to the UK's National Statistics Service, inflation in the country accelerated to an annual rate of 11.1% in October, the highest since 1981. Higher electricity tariffs were cited as the main factor behind the rise in prices.