The Education Minister has been told he “has work to do” to win back the trust of teachers in the education system after they failed to accept his offer of a new pay deal for the 2024/25 academic year.
Paul Givan had hoped a 5.5% pay offer, matching the raise agreed in England last year, would be enough to bring some stability to the education workforce, but the offer came “with strings attached”.
And that, according to unions, has been the main sticking point.
Jacquie White, Ulster Teachers’ Union (UTU) general secretary and chair of NITC, said issues over workload have not yet been dealt with as promised five years ago, and the timing and wording of the offer had been a major cause of irritation in the workforce.
Members of four of the five main unions failed to back the offer, which arrived late on a Friday evening, with unions citing concerns over the minister reinforcing the need for stability in the profession and calling them to refrain from industrial action in the future.
“We are now in a position where we don’t know the basis on which the teachers have chosen not to support this,” she told BBC NI Sunday Politics.
“That is why we’re saying we’re not rejecting this, rather we’re not in a position to accept this at this time.
“What we’re hearing is that workload elements, the further commitments to addressing workloads and the fact that those commitments which were made in 2020 and again last year, have not been met.”
She added that the system “has lost the trust of the teachers”.
“Teacher contracts were restated and there was information about industrial stability,” she said.
“Teachers understood all of that, but they didn’t really know what the point was in putting that in the offer in the first place. The feeling was ‘is there some sort of message here?’ Where they being accused of not fulfilling their contracts?”
She added that the union has not yet had “the opportunity to properly engage with members” since the pay offer arrived on Friday night.
“We have now organised a programme of engagement to drill down into the issues, but the initial feedback is the lack of trust in addressing the workload,” she added.
“Teachers are quite clearly and quite rightly telling us they have not seen any fundamental change of any sort in the classroom.
“We actually got the best we could get in terms of trying to get a pay offer onto the table, but we have no choice as to whether these extra elements are put in.
“I can understand completely why they don’t have any trust in this.”
Alliance MLA and chair of Stormont’s Education Committee Nick Mathison said the situation is “a mess” of the minister’s own making.
“It seems clear that everyone was going to be content with pay parity, if that was delivered. Workload appears to be the issue,” he said.
“The language being used by management side, coming from the minister and departmental level, around commitments to industrial harmony and restating teachers’ contractual obligations, when they’re already well aware of them, has been a massive part of this. It has led teachers to feel pushed into something, to making commitments that don’t seem clear.”
He added that it would be “helpful if everybody’s language could soften”.
“It is very clear from the statements the minister has put out that this deal does have to have strings attached. That is entirely unhelpful,” said Mr Mathison.
“Teachers simply want to know if they are going to be paid fairly and [if] those commitments around workloads [are] going to be dealt with. We don’t need any extra layers of commitment around periods of industrial harmony.
“The minister has decided he wants to play hardball and made a clear statement. That is profoundly unhelpful. That there will be no engagement until the action is called off has not gone down well.”
“I’m conscious we have a minister who is very happy to take credit when a pay offer is delivered, but now it’s suddenly nothing to do with him. He needs to take ownership of that. We need to see a clear timeframe for addressing workloads.”
DUP MLA Peter Martin, a former special adviser to two previous education ministers, said “there is a commitment” already in place to work through those issues.
“We do need stability in the sector,” he conceded. “It’s important teachers are valued and paid well for the work they do.
“The unions need to have conversations with their members. They recommended this pay offer be accepted. They need to find out why it wasn’t and come back to sit down with management side.”
The Education Authority and Department for Education have been contacted for comment.