A former first minister of Scotland has warned against strike action by teachers.

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrosdale, who went through 1980s industrial action as a teacher and oversaw landmark reform of the profession, shared his views in an exclusive interview with Tes Scotland.

This year Scottish teachers are demanding a 10 per cent pay rise - but the best offer on the table from councils has been 3 per cent. To bridge that gulf, union leaders believe teachers will have to at least demonstrate that they are prepared to strike by voting for action in a national ballot.

There has not been a national teacher-led strike over pay in Scotland since the 1980s, but last year college lecturers demonstrated the power of the walkout when they won their fight for pay harmonisation across the sector. Now lecturers at the top of the scale receive £40,026 whilst unpromoted classroom teachers can earn a maximum of £36,480.

However, in an interview with Tes Scotland, former first minister Lord McConnell has warned against teacher strikes.

Industrial action, particularly if it became protracted, was extremely damaging for education, said Lord McConnell.

The Labour peer - who was also education secretary at the time of the 2001 McCrone deal, which led to a 23 per cent pay rise for teachers - says two generations of pupils went through secondary school before the energy and creativity in schools was restored after the strikes over pay in the 1980s.

But he also warned the Scottish government against putting a “short-term sticking plaster” on the issue, and called for either another significant review of the profession akin to McCrone or a “big vision for Scottish education” from the SNP.

“The outcome needs to be a step forward not just a closing down of the problem,” Lord McConnell argued.

The current negotiations, however, are about pay alone - although a panel set up by the Scottish government to look at new career pathways for teachers will report early next year.

Approximately every decade, teachers fought for a substantial pay rise, according to Professor Henry Maitles, assistant dean of the University of the West of Scotland’s School of Education, who served as a school representative for the EIS teaching union in the 1980s. But those pay increases had tended to be tied to changes to conditions, he added.

Lord McConnell echoed this viewpoint, saying that the McCrone deal tied teachers to 35 hours of CPD every year and made it easier for councils to get rid of underperforming teachers. “These were two very symbolic ways we changed the nature of the profession,” he added. “People were no longer in a job for life if they were not up to it or behaving badly, and people in that job had to improve throughout their career.”

Professor Maitles believed that this time around there was little scope for altering conditions because teachers were already working “very close to their contractual hours”.

The unions argue that this year’s deal is about pay restoration, and that Scottish teachers have suffered a real-terms cut of at least 20 per cent in take-home pay over the past decade. EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan insisted that 10 per cent was not just a starting point for negotiations but the actual salary hike the union was holding out for.

“We have already cut our cloth by not going for the 20 per cent,” he said. But to get 10 per cent, Flanagan fully expected teachers would “at the very least have to demonstrate a willingness to take strike action”.

He added: “We are still hoping to secure an agreement but I don’t think the Scottish government will get close to a figure we could settle on without being pressured by the threat of strike action.”

A spokesman said the Scottish government was taking action to reduce teacher workload by “clarifying and simplifying the curriculum and removing unnecessary bureaucracy”.

Industrial action in schools was not in the interests of anyone, least of all parents and pupils, he insisted, adding: “Pay negotiations for 2018-19 are underway and we welcome the EIS union’s commitment to play its part in those discussions. It should be noted this government is the first in the UK to lift the 1 per cent public sector pay cap.”

This is an edited version of an article in the 20 July edition of Tes Scotland. Subscribers can read the full article here. To subscribe, click here. This week’s Tes magazine is available at all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here.