South Australia's public school teachers have been offered pay rises of 2.5 per cent a year for three years.

Negotiators announced the deal between the State Government and the Australian Education Union that will see the best teachers achieve salaries above $100,000, and measures to alleviate workloads as well.

If accepted, the pay rises would be backdated to last October.

“It's a good deal for teachers with an increase in their salary each year,” said SA Education Minister Susan Close

“It's also a good deal for students, as we're able to provide more support for students with a disability, and we're also putting an emphasis on increased teacher quality.”

The deal proposes the new grades of “Highly Accomplished Teacher” and “Lead Teacher” should be created, so long-serving high-performing teachers would be able to earn salaries above $100,000.

“We know that teacher quality is the most important ingredient for a good education,” Dr Close said.

“One of the best ways to improve teacher quality is to have already very accomplished and senior teachers go into other classrooms and help other teachers learn how to develop different styles, approaches and become even better teachers.

“We've created an incentive for teachers to lift up to that next level and to reward teachers of that quality.”

Australian Education Union SA president Howard Spreadbury said the pay increase matched other public sector offer, but the added conditions were more lucrative.

“Our members have been telling us for many months the issues in schools and preschools is workload, and that a lot of additional expectations are required of leaders, teachers and support staff,” he said.

“The offer from the Government was some additional resources to address workload and we believe that has been delivered to some extent, sufficiently for us to accept the offer as it stands.”

“The union never gets everything that it hopes for... but we recognise that in this current economic climate in this state, to achieve the salary outcome we have and additional resources to support our members in schools and preschools is a good investment on the part of the Government.”