No Government money for teacher pay rises in four years

No Government money for teacher pay rises in four years

The Early Childhood Council (ECC) has today (10 July 2015) expressed ‘frustration’ that the Government has paid no money for education and care centre teacher pay increases in four years.

The statement follows yesterday’s announcement there was $205 million of unspent education money in the Government Budget for the 11 months to May, including $27 million for teacher salaries.

ECC CEO Mr Reynolds said today (10 July) it was ‘deeply concerning’ there had been no funding increases for education and care teachers since 2011, whilst there had been three for kindergarten teachers.

The system, he said, was ‘absurd’.

‘It works like this. National Government officials negotiate with the teachers’ union on behalf of kindergartens. The Government then agrees to and funds large pay increases for kindergarten teachers, whilst funding no pay increases for others doing exactly the same work.’

Since 2011 kindergarten teachers had received two increases of 4% and one of .56%, while education and care centres, for example, had received no extra money to pay their teachers, Mr Reynolds said.

It was, he said, ‘outrageously unfair’ that both sets of teachers had the same qualifications, and did the same work. Yet the Government negotiated and funded big pay rises for one group, and gave nothing to fund pay rises for the other.

The result was ‘a widening chasm’, with education and care centres putting up parent fees and cutting services in order to find money to retain staff who were increasingly attracted to higher pay rates in kindergartens.

Mr Reynolds said it would be a simple matter for Government to fund early childhood teachers at the same rates no matter where they worked for, and ‘someone should be the asking why government is paying less for teachers just because they happen to be working outside the kindergarten sector’.

Prior to 2011, Mr Reynolds said, education and care centres were paid extra money so they could pay their teachers the same pay increases that government negotiated with the NZEI for kindergarten teachers. But since 2011 these payments had stopped.

Four years with no money for pay increases was ‘an insult to all teachers involved’, he said.

The Early Childhood Council has a membership of more than 1000 centres. About 30% are community-owned and 70% commercially owned. These centres care for tens of thousands of children from one end of New Zealand to the other.

ENDS

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