Most teachers in Northern Ireland set for half-day strike on Tuesday 21 February
Most teachers in Northern Ireland are set for a half-day walkout walkout as part of industrial action over pay and conditions.
Members of the UTU and INTO unions will take to the picket lines until midday on February 21.
The NASUWT has now confirmed it will also join the strike, saying members "have been left with no choice".
The announcement of strikes follows school leaders writing to the Northern Ireland Secretary of State about "significant concerns about the impact of the current crisis in education funding".
The heads of seven bodies sent a letter to Chris Heaton-Harris saying they would be "failing the children and young people of Northern Ireland if they didn't share their concerns".
Gerry Murphy, northern secretary of the teaching union INTO, said: "Our members rightly expect that their pay and conditions should not, especially during a cost-of-living crisis, be further eroded.
"Their pay should not only keep pace with the double figure inflation rate but must reflect our members’ contribution to society.
"The Department of Education needs to wake up and see that this reduction of pay has led to a crisis in recruitment and retention in education.
"More teachers and school leaders are leaving the profession and with the serious underfunding in education, employers are struggling to replace them."
He continued: “Instead of penny-pinching education budgets and children’s curriculum recovery needs, the proper finances to ensure that the needs of education are accounted for needs to be put in palace.
"Surely the children and their educators deserve better."
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary, said: “We have been left with no choice but to take strike action as a result of the failure of the education employers to offer any improvement on the miserly two year proposal made last February.
“At a time when teachers are facing the biggest squeeze on their finances in a generation, offering what amounts to a further real-terms pay cut is simply not good enough.
“Our members are not prepared to stand by while their pay dwindles and their living costs rise.”
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