TEACHERS in Wales are set to receive a pay rise.

The Welsh Government have announced plans to provide teachers with pay rises, which for some could total more than eight per cent.

The move was originally unveiled subject to consultation in July.

With that consultation now complete, the pay rise is set to be approved, and will be backdated to September 1.

Teachers at the minimum of the teacher pay scale will see a 8.48 per cent pay rise.

Those above will receive a mixture of 3.75 per cent and 2.75 per cent wage hikes.

Announcing the pay rises, education minister Kirsty Williams said: "Today’s announcement shows the benefit and continuation of the Welsh Government gaining responsibility for these powers.

"In setting teachers’ pay for the second time, we have continued to diverge from the proposals in England by awarding teachers in Wales higher starting pay and introducing some key changes requested by the profession such as experience based pay progression and national statutory pay scales.

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"This will help to promote teaching as a profession of choice for graduates and career changers.

"Alongside our reforms to professional learning, the curriculum and initial teacher training, it will help to encourage the highest quality teachers to join the profession here in Wales.

"We recognise that teachers’ pay is a significant element of schools’ and local authorities’ budgets.

"It was anticipated that the increased costs of this pay award would be met from the increase in funding allocated to local authorities from Welsh Government via the Revenue Support Grant, combined with provision from local authorities’ own revenue raising powers.

"However, in light of the pandemic, we are also well aware of the many competing pressures on budgets.

"Therefore, following discussions with local government, we will provide a total of £5.538 million in support of the cost of the pay award in this financial year.

"This includes £3.981 million which is in addition to the funding already provided to local authorities through the local government settlement, for years nursery to year 11, and a further £1.556 million to recognise the full increase in the post-16 allocation.

"In announcing this Teachers’ Pay award, I note that negotiations between Further Education colleges and unions are ongoing.

"The Welsh Government has a long standing commitment to pay parity and a further announcement will be made in due course."

Laura Doel, director of school leaders' union NAHT Cymru, said: “We are deeply disappointed that the pay award for 2020/21 is not being fully funded by the Welsh Government, meaning schools will need to find the money from their existing budgets.

“At our national conference last week, our members unanimously endorsed a motion for NAHT to advocate for adequate funding for all schools.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has burdened schools with significant additional costs which, if along with teachers’ pay go unfunded, will force schools over a financial cliff edge.

“This will result in school leaders facing impossible decisions between making redundancies or cutting resources, which in turn will have a detrimental impact on learners. There is a greater need now more than ever to retain staffing levels, given not just an increase in learner need, but because of the staffing pressures resulting from covid.

“We understand the government is in talks with Local Authorities to offer additional financial support and we hope those discussions are successful.

“We welcome the fact that the pay award is a departure from the below inflation increases in recent years, but the narrowing of the gap between teachers' pay and leadership pay will do nothing to support the headteacher recruitment and retention issues we have in Wales.

“NAHT support the re-integration of national pay scales and the removal of performance related pay and are pleased Welsh government have listened to us on this.”