One thing that the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated is that when whopping sums of cash need to be found, the government can find them. The price tag for the Covid-19 response to date in the UK runs into hundreds of billions of pounds. But when it comes to Scottish teachers - as became apparent last week - the public purse snaps shut decisively.

Teachers have been offered a pay rise from Scottish councils that “averages a little over 1 per cent”, prompting staff to say they are effectively getting a pay cut; one maths teacher worked out that a teacher at the top of the pay scale would get about £15 a month extra after tax.

Just to be clear, the offer that is on the table at the moment - an offer that Scotland’s largest teaching union has described as “completely inadequate” - is a 2 per cent uplift for those earning up to £40,000 and a 1 per cent rise for those earning more than £40,000, with a cap of £800.

Inevitably, this has been compared with the 4 per cent pay rise that NHS workers - including nurses, paramedics and other staff - have been told they will receive. This was promised by the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, at the end of March, just before election campaigning got under way (and as the figure being mooted south of the border was 1 per cent).

Of course, no one is suggesting that NHS staff are undeserving; as the EIS teaching union said in its comments, it is simply that “other public sector workers also deserve to have their vital contributions recognised”.

But the difference in the way teachers are being treated is blatant, so it’s worth reflecting on the unique challenges that they have faced over the course of the past year. 

The first thing to make clear, of course, is that even during periods of school closure, many teachers have continued to go into work to staff the hubs set up to look after vulnerable children and those of key workers.

Teachers’ organisations have lobbied for school staff to be prioritised for Covid vaccination but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. 

When school buildings have been open, staff have been expected to operate in a way that is disturbingly close to pre-Covid normal, with no reduction in class sizes, even in secondary, with the exception of the few weeks of staggered school return in Scotland in the run-up to Easter.

Tes Scotland has reported on teachers in the shielding category being forced to continue in the classroom, and, of course, the solution to increasing ventilation has for the most part been to open the windows.

Additional teachers have been hired but those in these jobs are now beginning to report that their contracts will end in June - despite the talk about education recovery and education secretary John Swinney’s insistence that the cash is there to retain them.

How can people feel valued if they don’t feel safe? How can they feel valued if they don’t have the resources to do their jobs? And how can they feel valued if all they are offered is a paltry pay rise?

So after Easter, when secondary students will be back full time, and some teachers in that sector face being paid below minimum wage for the extra work that the cancellation of the exams will result in, we can assume that morale in schools will be at an all-time low.

That’s quite an achievement given all the challenges that the profession has had to grapple with over the course of the past year, but with this derisory pay offer, local and national government seem to have managed it. 

Emma Seith is a reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith