Debate contribution: Teachers: 2024-25 Pay Award and Threat of Industrial Action
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Givan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 21 January 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Teachers: 2024-25 Pay Award and Threat of Industrial Action
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4749780
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for that question. Every year, we seek to review and reach a settlement on pay. A short time after the Executive's restoration, teachers' pay increased by over 10%. That was backdated. We resolved the industrial action by our support staff and delivered a significant increase in their pay. We review pay every year. I want that to happen sooner, but we have not been in a position to move forward, because the Department of Education has not had the funding to do so. I have had to work to identify what funding there could be. That will require difficult decisions for me, as a Minister, and I have no doubt that Members will criticise me for the decisions that I will need to take, but we are prioritising teachers' pay. That will have implications for the next financial year, because there will be a cumulative impact. That is why I unashamedly make the case for additional resource for the Department of Education. We want to attract people into the profession. It is a deeply valued profession. People often go into it because it is vocational, and we should never take that for granted. We should always pay them the appropriate salary to reflect their contribution to our children and young people, who, ultimately, are the future. We have workforce strategies in place. We are struggling to recruit people to teach particular subjects at post-primary level. That requires us to look at those issues, but I want to make sure that we pay our workforce the right rate to reflect the important work that they do. I will continue to seek to do that in the years ahead.
281 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.90).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.90 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.87 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.12 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.