Dubbo teachers welcome pay deal, Teachers' Federation organiser Tim Danaher says

On Saturday, members of the NSW Teachers Federation voted to endorse an offer made by the NSW Government which would see the state's teachers paid better than anywhere else in the country.

Starting salaries for teachers will increase from $75,791 to $85,000 and salaries for those at the top of the scale from $113,042 to $122,100 when the changes come into effect on October 9.

Dubbo teachers union organiser Tim Danaher said local teachers welcomed the change.

"This is a very welcome step in the right direction towards tackling the staffing crisis that we're currently facing," he told the Daily Liberal.

"There is light at the end of the tunnel now for our teachers and for the profession. But there is still a long road and a lot of work needs to be done to ensure that our teachers can focus on doing their jobs, which is to teach our students."

The agreement came after teachers across the state - including in Dubbo - campaigned "tirelessly" for the pay increase, NSW Teachers Federation acting president Henry Rajendra said.

"Teachers will benefit from this agreement which will immediately begin tackling the teacher shortage. The ultimate beneficiaries are our children. Investing in teachers is investing in the future," he said.

"We cannot forget this staffing crisis was a direct result of the former government's wage cap that artificially suppressed teachers' pay and their policy failures that pushed more and more work on to teachers resulting in intolerable and unmanageable workloads."

In August, the NSW Government threatened to walk away from the deal in a move teachers called a "broken promise".

Mr Danaher said backing down on the pay deal would only exacerbate the teacher shortages which led schools in Dubbo to merge classes and hold periods of minimal supervision on their ovals.

Despite being flagged for priority recruitment, Mr Danaher said Dubbo College Delroy Campus - named one of the hardest schools to staff in the state - was still unable to get teachers in all classrooms.

As well as attracting new teachers, Mr Danaher said the pay deal will "go a very long way" to keeping current teachers in the job.

"A local teacher I was speaking to the other day was literally just about to go out the door ... they couldn't afford to keep putting the hours in and doing what they were doing," he said.

"But now they said they're going to stick it out for a bit longer and hopefully we can address the workload."

Mr Danaher said the union would now be working with the government to find ways to make the workload for teachers more manageable by reducing admin hours.

"This government has now committed to continue discussions around workload and looking at ways to make sure that our teachers are doing their jobs, which is to teach and learn to provide teaching," he said.

"We're pretty pumped. The previous government wouldn't touch workload, they had all these millions and millions of dollars worth of plans and strategies that did zero."

Education minister Prue Car said the pay deal was "desperately needed".

"I am so proud that we are able to give teachers the pay rise they so urgently deserve," she said.

"The endorsement of this agreement marks an important step forward for teachers, as well as for students and families, as we work together to rebuild the state's public education system."

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