TUI and INTO members will also benefit from a 15% increase in the starting salary of teachers between 31 August 2016 and 1 January 2018.
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With ASTI members having rejected the Lansdowne Road agreement, the union are now firmly on a collision course with the Fine Gael-led Government, which could result in the closure of schools as early as next month.
About 3,500 teachers who qualified since February 2012 are now in line for the increase.
Newly qualified teachers are to receive pay rises worth up to €2,000 under a deal done between the Department of Education, the Teachers Union of Ireland and the Irish National Teachers Organisation.
The agreement was reached between the unions and Government officials in relation to a revised pay scale for new teachers.
The TUI says that the introduction of these new measures represent “a very significant step in the right direction in addressing the pay inequality suffered by teachers recruited since 1 February 2012” and say that they “will continue its campaign until full pay equality is achieved”.
This agreement will see increases of up to €2,000 per year for new teachers at the start of their careers.
ASTI is balloting its 17,000 members on the issue of pay for newly qualified teachers, as well as voting on withdrawing from carrying out supervision and substitution duties.
“We will continue to pursue a resolution through talks”.
The second-level teachers’ union will begin balloting its members on industrial action later this month. We want equal pay for equal work.
It came after a series of meetings since July between the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and TUI and INTO representatives. Today’s agreement reverses those measures, thereby restoring the value of those reductions to the teacher pay scale.
Commenting on the agreement, INTO president Rosena Jordan said: “Pay inequality is eroding morale and creating discontent”.
The ASTI said that it was not party to the LRA and had received no offer on the restoration of new teachers’ pay.
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Minister for Education Richard Bruton said it was “great news for new teachers” and showed what could be done through dialogue and within the Lansdowne Road agreement. The effect of this will be to assimilate all post-1 January 2011 and post-1 February 2012 new entrants to teaching onto a single new salary scale which will incorporate the honours primary degree allowance.
