B.C.'s teachers have strongly voted to end their illegal strike and return to their classrooms on Monday morning.

The margin of support for the deal was 77 per cent in favour, 23 per cent opposed, reported CTV News Vancouver on Sunday night. Just over 30,000 ballots were cast.

"Teachers have voted by a large majority to end our campaign of civil disobedience and return to work tomorrow,'' B.C. Teachers Federation president Jinny Sims said. "We will do so with our heads held high and hearts touched by the many gestures of kindness and solidarity we have experienced in the past few weeks.''

The federation's executive had urged teachers to accept the deal proposed by mediator Vince Ready, although it was uncomfortable with some of the terms.

"We are deeply disappointed that the government did not see fit to agree to a letter that would confirm its commitment to class size limits for students in Grades 4 to 12 and to addressing class composition problems," Sims stated earlier in a press release.

"However, we know that parents share our determination to achieve improved learning conditions for students. So we are confident that government will enshrine in the School Act these much-needed improvements to benefit all children in B.C. schools."

She also heralded the illegal strike action by her union's 38,000 members as a victory in a speech to them on Sunday, saying it brought high-level attention to education in B.C.

"Mr. Campbell pay attention to the classroom, pay attention to our students' learning conditions -- and that's what Mr. Campbell is going to have to do!" she shouted.

Campbell has said Ready only recommended the government consult with teachers on class size limits.

He said the striking teachers will pick up the $100-million cost of the recommendations as the government saved $160 million in wages as a result of the walkout.

Ready said the problem can be fixed if the government increases funding for learning conditions from $150 million to $170 million.

The strike began on Oct. 7 and continued for two weeks, keeping more than 600,000 students out of class and threatening Grade 12 students with the loss of the semester.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge slapped the union with a $500,000 fine on Friday.

Justice Brenda Brown said had it not appeared the teachers were about to return to work, the fine would have been much higher.

Besides classroom sizes and specialty-teacher ratios (both stripped away in a 2002 contract), the teachers were fighting for bargaining rights and a 15 per cent salary increase. In the second week of the strike, they got support from other public-sector workers, who attended demonstrations and shut down some services.

The provincial government imposed a contract on the teachers that gave them no wage increase, essentially extending the deal that expired in June 2004 until June 2006.

Ready has been mandated to develop a new bargaining process for when the new contract expires.