Thousands of schools in Britain shut by strike
LONDON - Thousands of schools across England and Wales were closed yesterday as Britain's biggest teaching union staged a one-day strike yesterday over pay, the first in 21 years.
The National Union of Teachers, which represents almost 200,000 of the 435,000 teachers in England and Wales, called the strike after the government offered a pay raise of 2.45 percent, which the union says is below the rate of inflation.
One in six of the 25,018 schools in England were expected to close, with a further one in six partially closed, The Local Government Association said in an e-mailed statement. It based its estimate on a survey of 91 of the 188 English local education authorities.
About 500 of the 1,826 schools in Wales closed, according to a survey by BBC Wales, with another 400 canceling some classes. There are 8.6 million schoolchildren in England and Wales.
"Teachers do not take the decision to strike easily, or lightly, but teachers' patience has been stretched to the limit," said Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the teachers union.
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