Teachers and school leaders in Northern Ireland have voted to accept a pay offer following a long-running campaign.
The offer will see the starting salary for teachers rise to £30,000, equating to a 24.3 per cent increase from £24,000 and bringing it more in line with England.
The proposal has been described as a cumulative total of 10.4 per cent plus £1,000 being applied to the other teachers’ and leadership pay scales.
End of a ‘difficult period’
Jackie Bartley, president of the NAHT Northern Ireland school leaders’ union, said: “This vote begins to close a difficult period - we have undertaken a full member consultation to ensure that our next step would be decided democratically across the Northern Ireland membership.
“The consultation closed [yesterday] at 5pm, with the majority of members voting in favour of accepting the offer.
“On this basis, we will engage with the employing authorities to formally submit our decision to accept the offer.”
Graham Gault, NAHT Northern Ireland national secretary, said: “Our members have decided to accept this offer, to ensure that the starting wage for teachers is more favourable to recruitment and that the overall pay structures are more favourable to retention across every point in the scale. This marks a welcome step towards proper pay restoration.
“However, many issues remain outstanding for school leaders, particularly around the issue of workload.”
Dr Gault added: “While we are pleased that our democratic processes have given us the mandate to close this dispute, we recognise that there is much to be done to deliver working conditions for school leaders to ensure that it is a safe and sustainable role going forward.”
The NASUWT teaching union also said that its members had voted to accept the terms of the 2023-24 pay offer.
The union said that 82 per cent of those who responded to the pay survey voted in favour of the offer, with a turnout of 63 per cent.
It is now set to consider the results of the survey before the Teachers’ Negotiating Committee meeting next Tuesday, 26 March.
NASUWT general secretary Patrick Roach criticised the wait for a “credible pay offer”.
“Northern Ireland teachers are long overdue a pay award. It is disgraceful that teachers have had to wait for three years to receive a credible pay offer,” he said.
“Nevertheless, the teaching profession deserves real-terms pay restoration, which must now be a priority.”
Strike action possible amid workload concerns
Dr Roach added: “Pay is only one of our concerns for Northern Ireland’s hard-working and dedicated teachers. The department and employers must now deliver on the commitments they have made to tackle excessive workload if they do not want action short of a strike to be a long-term part of the education landscape in schools.”
Justin McCamphill, NASUWT national official for Northern Ireland, added: “Teachers deserve a decent pay increase and should never have been forced to take to the streets to demand it. It is now incumbent on the minister of education [Paul Givan] to prepare for the commencement of negotiations for 2024-25.”
He added: “Restoration of teachers’ pay to where it should be will require above-inflation pay awards going forward. The new executive needs to plan for this when they set a budget in the new financial year.”
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