The NSW premier has stopped short of demanding teachers accept a four-year pay offer to lock in an initial boost that would make them the country's best-paid classroom leaders.
Under the state government's latest offer to end an increasingly rancorous pay dispute, salaries for entry-level teachers would increase by about 12 per cent from October, above pay for their counterparts in Victoria, Queensland and the ACT.
Top-of-the-scale teachers would get an immediate boost of eight per cent, lifting their salaries to $122,100 in 2024.
But the teachers union is furious about the other part of the offer - locking in the next three annual pay rises at 2.5 per cent per year.
Premier Chris Minns on Monday said the 2.5 per cent annual increases were about keeping the new "nation-leading" salaries on track with inflation.
"I'm not saying that we came to an agreement in relation to that, but it was always known, from the government's perspective," he told reporters.
The request to front-load the offer was at the request of the NSW Teachers Federation, he said.
Negotiations broke down in July after the union said an in-principle one-year agreement was suddenly changed to an offer covering four years, including a three-year maintenance phase.
Outgoing NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos described the change as "an act of betrayal" that had "gutted" teachers.
While cautious about telling the union to accept the deal, the premier said it was a reasonable offer that could keep teachers in the system for longer and ward off rising resignations.
"We're in a situation at the moment where a graduate teacher does three years of university, one year of practice, goes into the classroom for 24 months and then 20 per cent are resigning," Mr Minns said.
"We think we can turn that around with his wages deal."
Inflation is forecast by the Reserve Bank to fall back to about three per cent by the end of 2024.
The teaching profession is one of the few sectors offered a multi-year deal since Labor was elected in March.
While the government has torn up the long-standing 2.5 per cent cap on wage increases, it is holding off on announcing a replacement regime until the state budget on September 19.
In the interim, most public sector workers have been offered a four per cent pay rise for this financial year.
The offer for teachers also includes more annual grade increases, meaning someone who entered the workforce in 2023 would have their salary rise to $105,809 by 2026.
That's $8325 higher than the amount the previous government's wages deal would have garnered.
Top-of-the-scale teacher salaries would rise 15.1 per cent over the four-year agreement to $130,209, nearly $10,000 a year better.
Education Minister Prue Car said the 2.5 per cent offer for years two, three and four was only ever "indicative", although she conceded to the Sydney Morning Herald it was not acceptable to the union.
The NSW Teachers Federation declined to comment.
