£20 million in personal injury compensation were awarded to teaching staff who filed work accident claims in 2010, according to new figures recently released by major teaching unions in the UK.
Compensation was paid for several different types of accident claims such as criminal injuries or slip, trip, and falls. The largest pay-out weighed in at £459,000, which was awarded to one female teacher who has become wheelchair bound in the wake of an incident involving a nine year old male student who had been threatening classmates with a one metre long rule.
A member of the National Union of Teachers made another gargantuan compensation claim. The teacher received £426,000 in damages for injuries sustained in an incident where he had been sprayed in the face by an aerosol can being wielded by a pupil.
Another NUT-represented teacher received a £200,000 compensation award after an existing hernia problem became aggravated by slipping on a grape. The teacher had to abandon his teaching career in the face of chronic pain, according to the figures.
Another grape slip resulted in a compensation award of £20,000 after a teacher broke their hip in the incident.
Another union, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, managed to secure more than £10 million in personal injury compensation for its members in 2010. NASUWT stated that this figure represents a 20 per cent increase in comparison to the previous year’s totals.
NASUWT sgeneral secretary Chris Keates remarked that it was no cause for celebration that payments have grown so high, however. Mr Keates added that these high compensation awards coincided with claims that represented experiences that were potentially life-threatening.
In many cases the injuries sustained by the union member resulted in the untimely end to their careers, added a somber Mr Keates.