Primary teachers consider next move on pay claim

Primary teachers consider next move on pay claim

For use Wednesday October 24th

NZEI Te Riu Roa, the union representing 27,000 primary teachers, is asking them to consider how they want to proceed with their pay claim following adjourned negotiations with the Ministry of Education.

The union's claim seeks to maintain quality public education through genuine pay parity for all teachers. It also aims to retain and reward experienced teachers and avert the teacher supply crisis.

The NZEI says the sticking point is not the four percent base pay increase which the Ministry of Education has put on the table but the lack of financial recognition given to teachers who are taking on extra responsibilities in schools.

Currently thousands of primary teachers are taking on extra professional duties, such as mentoring new teachers, working as team leaders and taking school-wide responsibility for specific areas of the curriculum and are receiving little or no reward for the extra work they are putting in. Teachers believe that there is little incentive to accept extra responsibilities on top of a heavy workload when there is no financial recognition available.

That financial recognition is given by way of salary units which the Ministry of Education makes available to schools to reward teachers in management positions. The number of units given to the primary schools is only a fraction of the number given to secondary schools of the same size. This is not genuine pay parity.

The following chart shows the level of disparity based on actual school examples and shows how NZEI's claim would assist those primary schools.

Roll Size Primary Unit Allocation Secondary Unit Allocation NZEI's claim would provide 252 7= $24,500 35 =$122,500 14 = $ 49,000 512 14 =$49,000 52 =$182,000 25 = $ 87,500 757/705 22 =$77,000 68 =$238,000 37 = $129,500

The NZEI negotiating team believes that it is important to gain an increase in the number of units available to schools in the primary school sector. It says the lack of sufficient units makes it difficult to have an appropriately remunerated middle and senior leadership structure and there is no justification for a situation in which the primary sector receives only around one third of the units, on a per pupil basis, compared to the secondary sector. NZEI's claim , if successful, would reduce the gap between the sectors significantly.

At a time when NZ faces a potential teacher supply crisis in the primary sector, NZEI believes that it is extraordinary that the government and the Ministry of Education seem unwilling to address this disparity between teachers' overall pay structures. The union is now seeking feedback from primary teachers as to how they want to proceed with their pay claim and what level of support there would be to convince the Ministry of Education to make a more satisfactory offer.

The NZEI will advise the Ministry of Education of members' views once the consultation process has been completed.

ENDS

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