TEACHERS must be prepared to accept a “fair” and “realistic” pay deal, not the “unaffordable”10% rise unions are demanding, the First Minister has said.

Nicola Sturgeon said she recognised the “strength of feeling” there was on the issue after a ballot by Scotland’s largest teaching union saw 98% vote to reject the wage offer.

Her comments came as the SNP leader was told teachers were having to “buy pens, pencils [and] books for pupils because Scotland’s schools are starved of cash”.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard challenged her on the issue after members of two unions voted overwhelmingly against the offer that has been made by councils and the Scottish Government.

Education Secretary John Swinney has already said that while teachers are being offered a 3% pay rise across the board, restructuring of the main pay grade scale, combined with other changes will mean most would receive a rise of between 5% and 11%.

The EIS said 98% of its members rejected that with 97% of members of the SSTA teaching union, who took part in a separate vote, also opposed.

Leonard said: “The First Minister wants to be judged by her record on education, so let’s examine that record – it’s a record of austerity, which even SNP councillors now admit is going too far.

“How can education be your top priority with underfunded schools and undervalued teachers?”

Sturgeon insisted: “Teachers are not undervalued, we highly value the work that teachers do.”

But Labour’s Iain Gray, a former teacher, said: “The last time Scotland’s teachers were angry enough to go on strike Margaret Thatcher was still prime minister, I was a school teacher, the First Minister was a school pupil and some of the 98% of current teachers who have just rejected the pay offer were not even born. That is how badly this government has handled teacher pay.”

Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens also called on the Government to come back to pay talks with a “realistic offer” – saying staff in classrooms had seen their salaries fall in real terms by almost a quarter over the last decade.

The First Minister said the Government and council body Cosla would negotiate with unions in a bid to resolve the row. She said she wanted to “see teachers get a good pay rise, one that recognises the vital and very difficult job they do, one which recognises not just the current cost of living pressures but starts also a process of restoration of the lost ground that all public sector workers have suffered because of the years of pay restraint”.

She pledged ministers would go into talks “in good faith and with the political will to find an agreement”