Education Minister disappointed by unions pre-emptive action on teachers’ pay

Date published: 13 November 2024

Earlier this year the Minister provided funding for the successful resolution of the long running industrial dispute on teachers’ pay for 2021-24.

The pay settlement agreed by the Teachers’ Negotiating Committee (TNC) included a rise in the starting salary for teachers to £30,000, which equates to a 24.3% increase from the current starting salary. It also included the equivalent of a cumulative total of 10.4% plus £1,000 consolidated increase being applied to the other teachers’ and leadership pay scales. This settlement ended industrial action by teachers in April of this year.

Expressing his disappointment the Minister said:

“On Monday, the Executive announced October monitoring allocations and I am currently considering the implications of the additional financial allocation to Education.

“It was with disappointment that I was notified today of the decision by a number of teachers’ unions to proceed to ballot their members for industrial action in the coming weeks.

“Since my appointment as Education Minister, earlier this year my focus has been on improving the educational experience of all our children and young people, and on the staff who make that possible. To that end, I secured Executive funding to resolve the long running industrial dispute on teachers’ pay.

“This agreement ended industrial action by teachers in April, and I had hoped that this would allow us to increase stability and work together to improve the educational experience of our children.

“Any proposals for a teachers’ pay award must be affordable and this is difficult given the current financial pressures, however we will continue to work with the TNC joint pay group to seek a resolution.”