Teachers in England and Wales are calling for a 10% increase in wages, which they say would help ease the teacher shortage.

The demand is being made by Britain's biggest teaching union, the National Union of Teachers.

The government has dismissed it as "unrealistic".

Earlier this year teachers in England and Wales were given a pay rise of 3.5%. The unions had called for a rise of 12.5%.

Five teaching unions have written a joint submission to the School Teachers' Review Body, which will advise the government on teachers' pay, setting out what they say is a significant gap between salary levels for teachers in England and Wales and those of teachers in Scotland.

They say the difference explains why more people are coming forward to be teachers in Scotland.

Teachers' pay compared with average earnings has continued on a downward spiral

Doug McAvoy, NUT

The unions in England and Wales say the 133% rise in applications in Scotland to study teacher training was because Scotland pays newly qualified staff more.

Starting salaries in Scotland were �18,000, compared with �17,595 in England and Wales they said.

The increases in people applying to train as teachers for England and Wales were 12.5% and 15% respectively.

The NUT, the biggest teachers' organisation in the United Kingdom, says all teachers should have a pay increase of �2,000 or 10%, whichever is greater.

Manifesto

The other unions which have made a joint submission with the NUT are the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the Professional Association of Teachers and Welsh union UCAC.

They said policies aimed at attracting graduates into teaching had not worked and that only "substantial improvements to teacher salary levels and working conditions" would turn the tide.

The general secretary of the NUT, Doug McAvoy, said: "New Labour came to power with education, education, education at the centre of its manifesto.

"Yet teachers' pay compared with average earnings has continued on a downward spiral.

"Indeed, since 1992, teachers' pay has declined by 10 points against average earnings."

'Unrealistic demands'

The NASUWT has not put a figure on the rise it wants.

But the general secretary Eamonn O'Kane said there was an "irrefutable need for substantial increases".

His union would be under "irresistible pressure" to take industrial action, he said, unless the government boosted teachers' pay and cut their hours.

"There will be no lasting solution to the current problems of recruitment and retention until the vital job of teaching is valued sufficiently highly to recruit, retain and motivate teachers," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said: "Unrealistic pay demands just won't wash.

"Teachers who started work in 1997 have seen their pay rise by over 50% and, with a 33.5% increase in London weighting over the last two years, this represents the most substantial injection into teachers' pay for decades.

"Teachers themselves have said it is workload that is their top priority, and that is why we are working with the unions to bring about real change on that front."