Carlos Alba Education Correspondent

TEACHING unions in Scotland yesterday declared war on employers after being offered a pay award of 2.7%. They had asked for 4.8%.

The Educational Institute of Scotland said the deal, the lowest offered to any group of public sector workers, ''made a mockery of the Government's big talk about the importance of education, the quest to drive up standards, and motivate the profession''.

Its executive council, which meets on Friday, could decide to ballot all 50,000 members on industrial action if it feels there is no mileage in further negotiation.

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, which represents one in three secondary teachers, is urging its members to reject the offer in a vote.

Delegates emerged in angry mood from a three-hour meeting of the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee - made up of members of the main teaching unions and local authority employers - despite forcing management to up its original offer of 2.5%.

They were further enraged that the offer was laced with a promise of further negotiations following the outcome of the Millennium Review, which is due to produce its findings next month.

It is likely to recommend introducing local flexibility into what councils see as the rigid structures perpetuated by the SJNC.

It would allow individual councils to end conserved salaries, which protect pay levels of senior teachers moving into departments where there are no equivalent promoted posts, and to redirect the cash into other areas such as summer schools and the creation of so-called ''twin-track'' or ''super-teachers''.

Yesterday's award would mean an extra #567-a-year to the average teacher. Unions dismissed management claims that it was higher than that offered to their counterparts south of the Border, who accepted a staggered settlement starting at 2.6% but rising to 3.8% by the end of the year.

EIS general-secretary Ronnie Smith said: ''Our puzzlement is what have Scottish teachers done to deserve the lowest pay award we know of any group of workers in the private or public sectors?

''We are also concerned at this clumsy attempt to link the offer with possible negotiations which will flow from the millennium inquiry, which itself puts at risk the integrity of that review.

''To unscrupulously undermine the ordinary cost-of-living offer is singularly unhelpful. It's unclear how the millennium inquiry will end up. This is a pig in a poke.''

SSTA general secretary David Eaglesham said: ''When more and more is being asked of teachers, what is essential is higher pay, not a reduction in real terms.

''The pay offer hinted at possible changes in salary and conditions from later this year. We are concerned that this would mean worse conditions for all teachers and higher pay for only a few. This scenario is wholly unacceptable.''

Tino Ferri, executive member of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers said: ''It seems that, despite what management says, it doesn't value teachers. It is playing with words and our members will see through this charade.''

SJNC management side convener Elizabeth Maginnis said that not only did the offer represent a higher increase for Scottish teachers than teachers in England and Wales received for the financial year, ''it also presents an opportunity for teachers in Scotland to obtain further increases in pay as a result of agreeing to reforms to which the Government, through its manifesto, is committed.

''We need to modernise management structures in schools, as has happened elsewhere in the public and private sectors, and we need to raise the levels of salary and status of the unpromoted teacher or recruitment and retention will become a problem.

''The Government specifically asked the Millennium Review to consider how best to introduce a twin-track promotion structure to encourage teachers with recognised excellence to remain in the classroom.''