Teachers in England and Wales will stage their first national strike in more than two decades on April 24, Britain’s biggest classroom union announced today.

The National Union of Teachers said that a ballot of its 255,000 members had found a majority of those who voted were in favour of a one-day strike over pay.

The union is demanding a 10 per cent pay rise this year, or £3,000 for every teacher in England and Wales, whichever is the greater.

Ministers have announced a 2.45 per cent increase for teachers in England and Wales this year, with further rises of 2.3 per cent in 2009 and 2010.

The NUT claims that this offer represents a real-terms pay cut as it is below the rate of retail price inflation.

The proposed April 24 strike will come one week before local government elections, and will hit thousands of schools in England and Wales in the run-up to tests and exams.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that the teachers’ pay award had been recommended by the independent School Teachers Review Body.

"It was welcomed by all the other teaching unions," she said. "So it is disappointing that a small proportion of teachers are threatening to disrupt children’s education in this way.

"It is clear that the majority of teachers don’t want a dispute. The ballot shows that strike action was backed by less than a quarter of the NUT members - only around 1 in 10 of the overall teacher workforce."

The spokeswoman added: "A strike will serve only to disrupt children’s learning, inconvenience parents and place a burden on fellow teachers.

"We will support head teachers and local authorities to keep schools open and minimise disruption for parents. We urge the NUT to reconsider."

Turnout in the strike ballot was relatively low, at just 32.2 per cent of the union's membership, but of those who voted 75.2 per cent backed industrial action.

Steve Sinnott, the NUT general secretary, called on ministers to think again and give teachers a better deal. "The Government is wrong to determine a pay increase for teachers below the rate of inflation," he said.

"The consequences of real-term pay cuts are familiar to us. They were a feature of the ’boom and bust’ years before 1997. In that period schools suffered from recruitment and retention problems - there were teacher shortages and morale was low. The NUT wants no return to those bad old days."

He called on the Government to reward teachers properly so that a good calibre of staff was recruited. "Our children deserve the best," he said. "I call on the Government to think again and ensure that salaries at least keep pay in line with inflation and that there is a recognition of the continuing workload pressures on teachers."

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