MORE than 1000 teachers from across the Far North gathered in Cairns yesterday amid fears the ongoing pay dispute with the Government was driving graduates away from the profession.

They were part of 40,000 teachers across the state taking strike action in an attempt to secure a pay rise which the Queensland Teachers Union said would put them on pay equal to their counterparts in other states.

Pictures: Cairns teachers strike

The large-scale strike action may happen again as teachers resolved to take more industrial action unless the Government improved its 12.5 per cent pay rise offer over three years.

"Our main message would be pay equity," QTU organiser Maureen Duffy said.

"Teachers do a very, very hard job. They deserve to be paid the same as other states."

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Cairns State High School principal Trevor Gordon said he feared the profession may struggle to attract graduates in the future, putting certain subjects at serious risk.

"I’m here because I am really concerned about the future of teacher recruitment," he said.

"I have a real fear now that there are certain subjects in the senior schools and secondary schools that will be unteachable soon. I would think physics and some of the maths is in real trouble. I would think some of the manual trades are in trouble."

Mr Gordon said high-achieving students in the past had strived to be teachers but he felt that was no longer the case.

"If you go to the top 25 students of a secondary school now and asked them who wanted to be a teacher, you would be flat out getting one," he said.

"We are just losing relativity. Teacher recruitment is more complicated than salaries but it’s part of it and we need to address it."

Tully State High School mathematics teacher Callum Morrison said the QTU was happy to head back to the negotiating table and discuss future options with the Government.

"We want them to be reasonable, that’s all we ever wanted," he said.

"We have been trying since last year to get a new agreement but there has been no serious attempt to negotiate a settlement with us.

"We are keen to sit down with them, we always have been. We don’t want any-
thing outrageous or anything more than anyone else, we just want equity with other states."

Education Minister Geoff Wilson said the Government’s pay offer was "fair and reasonable" and would make Queensland teachers among the best paid in the country – a claim the union angrily denied.

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