TEACHERS are due to begin a ballot today on whether to accept a below-inflation 2.8 per cent pay offer from the government.

The National Education Union (NEU) has launched a preliminary consultation on the unfunded offer, warning that it would lead to school cuts and worsen the teaching recruitment crisis.

It says the pay increase would “do nothing to repair the damage to the competitive position of teacher pay against other graduate professions.

“Teachers face another pay cut. The already critical recruitment and retention problems damaging our education service will get even worse,” said the union.

Ministers have recommended the 2025-26 deal to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB).

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said the award is “unacceptable,” adding: “It will deepen the chronic recruitment and retention crisis in our schools, and means more cuts for already struggling schools.

“Pay has fallen by around a fifth against inflation since 2010, pushing education into the worst crisis in decades.

“More schools are in deficit now than at any point since 2010. Class sizes are the largest on record.”

Mr Kebede said NEU members “do not want to strike,” but warned that “ignoring the profession and backing educators into a corner means we will be left with no choice.”

He said: “The government was elected in the hope it would value education, but a 2.8 per cent pay award without funding does the opposite.

“Like the Conservatives before them, they are forcing schools to make more cuts.

“It is short-sighted, it is wrong, and teachers will not stand for it.

“There is time yet for [Chancellor] Rachel Reeves and her colleagues to think again and deliver for teachers, children and our schools.”

The NEU’s executive committee has recommended its roughly 284,000 members working in maintained schools in England to reject the pay offer and indicate that they are prepared to strike for a fully funded pay award.

More than three in four primaries and 94 per cent of secondaries would be forced to make cuts under the proposals, according to research cited by the union.

The ballot closes on April 11.

The Department for Education was contacted for comment.