Members of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) in the North will be balloted for strike action next month.

Thousands of teachers could, early in the autumn term, be either taking strike action or working to rule in protest at the "prolonged erosion of their pay coupled with increasing levels of unmanageable workload".

Speaking about the announcement of a ballot, Gerry Murphy, INTO’s Northern Secretary, said: “INTO has always been to the fore in both improving and protecting its members’ contractual rights and their entitlement to fair pay and manageable workload.

"In this current cost of living crisis that we are facing, we will once more not be found wanting.

"Our members rightly expect that their pay and conditions should not deteriorate but must reflect the professional nature of this highly skilled group. Therefore, in response to our members’ requests, INTO will provide a forum, through a ballot, to sanction industrial action.

"The real value of teachers’ pay has been continually eroded since 2010, firstly with the disastrous austerity measures, and now in the guise of a one per cent public pay policy, which means our members are struggling to keep pace with a near double-digit inflation rise.

"We are demanding a rise in pay that is in keeping with the rise in inflation, and reflects our members’ contribution to society."

Mr. Murphy said that since April, INTO has, along with colleagues on the Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council, been campaigning and lobbying the different political parties in an effort to have the issue of teachers’ pay placed firmly on their agendas.

They have also called upon the different employing authorities, and the Department of Education, to engage with the Department of Finance to meet teachers' pay demands.

"INTO has always sought dialogue and sees industrial action only as a last resort. However, we can no longer ignore the frustration and anger of our membership who are faced with escalating costs to both energy, food and National Insurance increases.

"They feel that their goodwill throughout the pandemic has been taken for granted, and they are now at breaking point,” he added.

Mr. Murphy said that the upcoming vote in respect of taking industrial action is fully endorsed by the Central Executive Committee and Northern Committee of INTO, and continued: “INTO is left with no other choice but to seek a mandate from our members for action.

"The Department of Education seems, through its mean-spirited pay offer, to have misread the mood of its teachers and not to have taken the feelings of our members seriously.

"Have they forgotten that our members were on the frontline during the pandemic, enabling key services to continue to be provided?

"The teaching community’s response to the pandemic only serves to confirm the importance and worth of this group of professionals and confirms both the need to seriously consider a reduction of teacher workload alongside a fair increase in teachers’ pay.”

Mr. Murphy said: “Instead of penny-pinching education budgets and children’s curriculum recovery needs, the proper finances [are needed] to ensure that the needs of the pupils and our members are put in place. Surely the children and their educators deserve better.”