Minister Reacts To Teachers' Union Ballot Threat

Education Minister Paul Givan has responded to the announcement by several teachers' unions that they plan to ballot their members for industrial action over 2024/25 pay.

Earlier this year, the Minister provided funding to successfully resolve the long-running industrial dispute over teachers' pay for 2021-24.

The pay settlement agreed by the Teachers' Negotiating Committee (TNC) included a significant increase in the starting salary for teachers to £30,000, representing a 24.3% rise from the current starting salary. Additionally, the agreement provided for a cumulative total of 10.4% plus £1,000 consolidated increase to be applied to other teachers' and leadership pay scales. This settlement brought an end to 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."