The general secretary of the island’s largest teaching union says the decision by its members to go out on strike is entirely the fault of the Manx government.

Dr Patrick Roach, of the NASUWT, was speaking as the union announced its members will walk out on six days across the coming months.

In an escalation of the dispute between the union and the Department of Education, Sport and Culture, the teachers plan to strike later this month on November 30, as well as on December 1.

The union, which says it represents more than 600 teachers and lecturers on the island though has been unable to give an exact figure, has also announced planned strike action in the new year on January 11 and 12 and February 15 and 16.

Dr Roach said: ‘Responsibility for the escalation of our industrial action to strike action and any disruption caused as a result lies entirely with the DESC.

‘The revised pay offer tabled by the DESC represents yet another real-terms pay cut for teachers who have already seen the value of their pay fall by more than 30% in real terms since 2010.

‘Teachers are unable to make ends meet due to soaring cost of living and years of pay erosion is adversely affecting the recruitment and retention of teachers.

‘The last thing our members want to do is to take strike action but have been left with no other choice. The DESC must use the time available to engage with us to find a negotiated solution and we urge ministers to do so.’

The strikes have been called after NASUWT members overwhelmingly (74% of respondents) rejected the government’s latest revised pay offer.

However, we understand that the government was not informed its offer had been rejected before the union made its announcement.

The union told Isle of Man Today that as it has a live ballot for strike action, it wasn’t required to ask members to support a walk out. In September it said that 82% of its members who voted in a ballot at the time had supported strike action.

Shortly after the announcement from the union, the government announced that it had made an offer to all teacher unions for the current academic year and was still awaiting a response.

This package will see the wages of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) rise by 11.9% and school leaders by 8% from September 1 2022, which means a newly qualified teacher on the Isle of Man will start on £36,557.

This offer follows the implementation of a deal for 2021/22, which saw NQTs receive a 5.8% pay rise, and school leaders received 2%.

A DESC spokesman said: ‘The education of young people remains the top priority and the DESC has an open door policy for all teacher unions.’

How we got here

In a dispute that stretches back to before the pandemic, the island’s teaching unions have long been engaged in talks with the government over pay and working conditions.

However, the NASUWT is the only union which has been unable to reach an agreement with the DESC, after the National Association of Head Teachers and National Education Union accepted pay offers.

Up until this point, members had been carrying out action short of striking, which saw them refuse to cover break duties or staff absences.

This led two high schools to tell certain year groups to work from home as the DESC admitted the safety of children couldn’t be guaranteed.

In September, it was announced that the DESC had implemented the London fringe pay scales and an additional Isle of Man weighting of 1% which saw all teachers receive an uplift between 2% to 7.6% and was backdated to September 1, 2021.

This was despite opposition from the NASUWT.