Union leaders are calling on the Scottish Government to find extra cash for teachers’ pay, as they prepare for wage talks from next week.
Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), said the pay deal currently on the table “simply isn’t enough”.
The EIS, which is Scotland’s largest teaching union, and other unions which negotiate pay for the sector has already unanimously rejected the offer put forward by local authority body Cosla.
The deal offers a 2% rise from August and a further increase of 1% from May next year.
Cosla has warned that tight council budgets mean a larger increase for teachers will “mean job losses and service cuts”.
However Ms Bradley said she believes councils have a little more cash available – and she added the Government could also provide more funds for teachers’ wages.
She told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “While we understand councils are in a tight corner fiscally, we also understand many councils budgeted for 3% and that is not what is on the table yet, it falls short of a 3% offer.
“We also believe the Scottish Government could contribute something to a settlement, we believe they have got scope to be able to do that.”
She said the current deal – the first offer made by councils in response to a pay claim from teachers in January – “isn’t enough to take account of the most recent cost-of-living impacts on teachers’ salaries”, adding it will not help restore pay to previous levels.
She said wages are 25% lower than they were in 2008, and unions “are committed to restoration”.
Ms Bradley said pay negotiations with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers will start next week, and she noted “we are really only at the very beginning of negotiations now after four, nearly five months of waiting”.
She said improvements in teacher pay must be made to help tackle problems with recruitment and staff retention.
Ms Bradley said: “Realistically we have to expect more when we consider the number of countries in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) that are paying above what Scotland is to experienced teachers, in region of 23 to 25 countries are doing so, including Ireland and England.
“What we’re seeing in Scotland is a reluctance on the part of graduates to come into the profession and we’re see some of more experienced teachers leave, not only because of pay, they are other issues that are professionally challenging that are influencing their decision making.
“But if we are going to properly recruit and retain teachers then we have to do something about pay, we simply can’t afford not to.”
It comes less than two years after teachers across Scotland took strike action amid a dispute over pay – with the walkouts closing schools in late 2022 and early 2023.
The Scottish Government said at the time that deal meant salaries in January 2024 would be 33% higher than they were in January 2018.
