SCOTTISH teachers have been urged to use strikes to force through pay rises.

In a call to arms Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), told members to build widespread support throughout the profession for industrial action.

The call comes after concern from teachers that salaries have stagnated since 2003 when the last major pay deal was fully implemented.

Councils have offered teachers a one per cent rise in line with wider public sector pay restraint, but that has already been rejected.

The EIS argues pay has fallen more than 16 per cent behind its 2003 value when measured by the retail price index. The difference is eight per cent when measured by the alternative consumer price index.

The pay row comes after college staff took six days of strike action to secure a new £40,000 salary level for unpromoted lecturers. Unpromoted teachers earn £36,000.

Speaking at the annual general meeting of the EIS in Perth Mr Flanagan said: “Scotland’s teachers are delivering for our young people and they deserve better support from the political class than we have seen recently.

“That support needs to extend into ensuring that teaching is seen as an attractive career, with appropriate pay and acceptable working conditions.

“In colleges activists worked for over a year to build support amongst members and just as importantly to build confidence amongst members that they could win the campaign.

“We need to do the same for teachers. Scotland’s teachers need a pay rise and they need it now.”

Mr Flanagan said Scotland’s teachers needed to make their voice heard and that it was time to “fight back”.

The call came on the eve of a debate on a motion from the West Dunbartonshire local association which calls for the union's ruling council to prepare a campaign to restore salaries to their previous value based on inflation figures "and to negotiate on this basis for next year’s pay settlement".

It adds: "Failure to reach agreement would result in a ballot of members, to begin a campaign of industrial action including strike action, from the start of the academic year in 2018-19."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Teachers’ pay and conditions of service are matters for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT). Negotiations are currently ongoing and the Scottish Government will play its part in that process.”

Later, Mr Flanagan highlighted concerns over the roll-out of the Scottish Government’s flagship £120 million Pupil Equity Fund.

The fund has seen some schools with high proportions of disadvantaged pupils receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in additional funding.

A condition of the fund is that headteachers rather than councils decide what it should be spent on, but Mr Flanagan said the money should be entrusted to schools.

“There is a danger because we should be talking about giving the money to schools and we should be talking about how schools want to spend that money.

“Headteachers are not the lords and ladies of their particular local fiefdoms. They should be leaders and we want to see democratic schools where every department has a say.

“That also benefits headteachers because they do not want to become accountants and paper-chasers.”

Earlier this week, Stephen Miller, president of School Leaders Scotland, which represents secondary heads, said there was some anxiety on the requirement to show the fund was helping to close the attainment gap between rich and poor.

He said: “I think the greater anxiety is not necessarily about the money that has to be spent, but about the ability to evidence improvement in a very short time scale.”