Teachers leaders have called for "significant" improvements in pay, as they claimed graduate trainees in a budget supermarket get paid more than classroom teachers at the top of the pay scale.

Mike Corbett of the NASUWT union made the plea direct to Education Secretary John Swinney at a fringe event at the SNP conference in Glasgow.

Speaking on the "thorny issue" of pay and conditions, Mr Corbett told him: "I know there are limits to what you and your government can do but it really is time for something significant to happen."

Mr Corbett, a teacher at Bearsden Academy, said research by the NASUWT - which is the UK's largest teaching union - showed supermarket Aldi pays graduates who are training to become regional managers a first-year salary of £42,000.

"That's more than £6,000 a year more than a classroom teacher at the top of the scale," he added.

He welcomed the Scottish Government's commitment to ending the public sector pay cap - but said that would not happen until next year.

Mr Corbett said: "Someone in my position as a classroom teacher at the top of the scale is 16% worse off in real terms than I was in 2010."

He added "part of the problem" with recruiting and retaining sufficient teachers "is the existing rate of pay".

Mr Swinney said he recognised the "importance of ensuring we have in place an approach on salaries and pay that recognises the challenges of the teaching profession and recognises the issues that teachers are wrestling with as a consequence of a number of years of pay constraint."

He added: "These will feature in the discussions we have with the teaching unions and will feature in the budget that is brought forward by the finance secretary."