The University and College Union (UCU) has criticised the recent pay offer to lecturers, calling it 'insulting' compared to the package offered to schoolteachers.

They will withhold marks until a fair and acceptable pay offer is made, which means students will not be able to graduate.

Lecturers have been offered a five per cent pay raise plus a non-consolidated payment of £1,500.

This follows the past two years of having one per cent pay awards imposed.

Comparatively, schoolteachers have been offered pay increases of 1 per cent for 2021-22, 5 per cent for 2022-23, and 4.1 per cent plus £1,000 for 2023-24.

Katharine Clarke, official for UCU Northern Ireland, said: "I am absolutely staggered that any employer, Minister, and government department could consider such disparity in remuneration for two sets of workers doing the same job as acceptable.

"UCU is opening a survey today on the lecturer pay offer to members and we are issuing a firm recommendation that this insulting offer of five per cent, after over a decade of pay restraint, is rejected."

Lecturers have been embroiled in a pay dispute for four years, leading to discontinuous strike action for three months last semester, boycotting of ETI inspections and a refusal to mark registers.

The pay offer comes at a time when Minister Conor Murphy and the Department for the Economy has been allocating millions into a voluntary severance scheme, which enables big pay outs of up to 21 months for senior and corporate staff on the threshold of retirement.

Ms Clarke added: "We know that a 1% pay increase for lecturers’ costs £1m to finance.

"From our engagement in redundancy consultation across colleges, the UCU estimate the cost of the voluntary severance scheme is between £10 – 15m, possibly more.

"This money could have been re-directed to make an improved pay offer.

"It is clear lecturer staff who do not get made severance offers are financing the golden handshakes of staff who do via insufficient pay uplifts.

"We believe the Minister and DfE’s priorities are all wrong, some might say a scandalous misuse of public money. If they do not reverse the path they are currently travelling, the sector will be hit with further industrial action.

"Our members will withhold marks until such time as a fair and acceptable pay offer is made, this means students will be unable to graduate."