The island’s teaching unions are split over the pay deal offered by the government.

Yesterday, the NASUWT announced its members had rejected it.

But now the National Education Union says its members back it. The National Association of Head Teachers also accepts the pay deal.

The NEU, formed after the merger of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in 2017, put the Department of Education, Sport and Culture’s pay offer to its membership and the vote was to accept it.

In a statement, the NEU said: ‘The union welcomes the DESC’s negotiations and its consideration of an Isle of Man weighting to be applied to the pay scales on the island for both teachers and lecturers.

‘We recognise that relations and negotiations between the joint union sides and the DESC have improved, and that collaborative working is proving successful in policy review.

‘We have consulted with our members, and they feel willing to accept this current offer.

However, it added: ‘The NEU would like to raise our concerns however, that members acknowledge that this offer does not yet fully address our pay erosion over the last ten years, and we embrace the opportunity to begin pay negotiations for 22/23 immediately.

‘In particular, looking at how pay erosion of just under £10,000 can be addressed and how weightings can be applied equally to all pay scales.

‘The prospective employment of cover supervisors, which seeks to address workload for teachers must come hand-in-hand with negotiation of a clear job description because it is currently unclear to us how this proposal will reduce workload.’

As we reported yesterday, the NASUWT – the island’s biggest teaching union – said that, with the Manx consumer prices index inflation rate standing at 9.0%, the headline 3.6% pay rise represented a real-terms pay cut of at least 5.4% for the majority of its members.

‘This represents the largest single annual real-terms cut since 2010,’ a spokesman said.

‘When the proposed pay award is added to the current pay points a significant number of teachers move into a high pension contribution band which in affect reduces the offer by at least 1%.’