ACT Party President Chris Simmons
May 16 2012

Performance Based Pay for Teachers Long Overdue

ACT New Zealand today welcomed Education Minister Hekia Parata’s serious consideration of performance based pay for teachers, which is best practice in industries all around the world and is long overdue in the education sector.

“Quality education is an important stepping stone to higher wages, better job prospects and a successful economy. We should be focused on keeping the best teachers in classrooms and in front of students. Devolving salary decisions to Boards and Principals, who could then pay their best teachers more, is a logical step to achieving this,” says ACT Party President Chris Simmons.

“Under the current system, many good teachers move away from the classroom and into management roles as this is the only way that they can get a higher wage.

“The incentives are wrong and it is students that suffer - approximately 20 per cent of students leave school every year without basic literacy and numeracy skills.

“In Australia, the Labor Government has recently established performance based pay bonuses with the first payments to teachers expected in 2014.

“For too long we have thrown money at the education sector without any substantial increases in student achievement. Per student funding increased at over twice the rate of inflation over the last decade. More money is clearly not the answer. The system must change.

“The current Government has initiated a number of new education policies aimed at lifting achievement rates for students. We hope performance based pay with decision-making at the Board and Principal level becomes yet another long-championed ACT policy that the Government adopts,” says Mr Simmons.

ENDS

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