Collective Agreement Offers for Primary Teachers and Principals, Secondary Teachers and Area School Teachers

NZEI and PPTA members will be voting on the settlement offers for primary teachers’ and principals’,  secondary teachers’ and area school teachers’ collective agreements.

Proposed Terms of Settlement:

Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement
Primary Principals’ Collective Agreement
Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement
Area School Teachers’ Collective Agreement

Terms of Settlement - Collective Agreements

The later expiry dates, the inclusion of area schools, the one-off injection to achieve pay parity and other components of the settlement, offset by underspends from Communities of Learning | Kāhui Ako, has increased the cost of offers by $271 million to cover new ground.

An Accord between the Ministry, NZEI and PPTA has been developed to address teachers’ and principals’ concerns about workload, wellbeing and other workforce issues.

Collective agreements that arise from these offers would be effective from 1 July 2019 for 3 years.

Our offer summary – around 30,000 primary, 22,000 secondary and 3,000 area school teachers

  • The offers increase the maximum base salary for primary, secondary and area school teachers, with teaching and subject degrees, to $90,000 per year from July 2021. At least 24,000 (46%) teachers will be on $90,000 from 1 July 2021.
  • The offers increase the maximum base salary for primary and secondary and area school teachers, with teaching degrees, to $85,490 per year from July 2021. Over 11,000 (22%) teachers will be on $85,490 from 1 July 2021.
  • The offer to primary teachers’ restores pay parity through the matching of their pay scales with secondary teachers. This means teachers with the same qualifications and experience will get the same pay rate and annual pay progression through a unified base salary scale.
  • Secondary Teachers’ and Area School Teachers’ Careers Adviser Allowance will increase from $1,500 to $2,250.
  • NZEI and PPTA members will each receive a one-off lump sum of $1,500 (pro-rated for teachers working part time).
  • Once pay parity is restored all teachers will get average increases of about 3% over 3 years, as well as an additional top step in their pay scale.
  • In recognition of the additional funding to restore pay parity, an increase will be made to the number and value of management units and to the value of management allowances for secondary and area school teachers. Management units will increase by 1,000 and in value from $4,000 to $5,000 and management allowances will increase from $1,000 to $2,000, from 2020. The majority of secondary teachers receive extra remuneration for taking on additional responsibilities. 12,000 (57%) secondary teachers are paid above the top of the base scale.  

Our offer summary – around 2,000 primary principals

  • All primary principals will receive at least 3% increases on 1 July 2019, with subsequent increases of at least 3% after 12 months and after 24 months.
  • Principals have asked for more support for their colleagues in smaller schools (100 students and under).

-       New entitlement of 10 hours per term classroom release time from 2020. Principals of these schools usually have a teaching component to their role and the offer would provide additional classroom release time outside of the classroom.

-       Increased operational grant funding to allow for 2 fulltime equivalent- staff during the school day for those schools who currently only have an entitlement to fewer than 2 fulltime equivalent teachers (including the principal)

  • All principals who are members of the NZEI will receive a one-off lump sum of $1,500 each (pro-rated for teachers working part time).

Funding the offers

To cover the cost of the revised offers, there will be a reprioritisation of unspent education funding ($79.5 million over 3 years) from the Investing in Educational Success programme, known as Communities of Learning / Kāhui Ako. This programme has unallocated roles, allowances and release time which will now be used to off-set the cost of settling the collective agreements.

The remaining money comes by re-phasing uncommitted funding due to the delay in being able to settle and an increase of $78.4 million over 3 years in the overall funding available.

Kāhui Ako

New take-up for this voluntary initiative has slowed.

Kāhui Ako are groups of schools, early learning services, and other providers who have chosen to work together to help all their learners succeed.

This decision does not affect any existing Kāhui Ako who have employed their leadership and teaching roles, whether permanent or fixed term, nor those currently recruiting for new roles, nor those who are formed and are working on their achievement challenges.  In all of these cases funding will remain available.

Schools have had 5 years to decide whether or not to join a Kāhui Ako. The 74.5% of state and state integrated schools in Kāhui Ako will continue to operate with the funding they are entitled to.

The decision does not affect the new model of delivery for learning support services. The new model is based on clusters of schools, regardless of whether or not they are members of a Kāhui Ako.

Ministry, NZEI and PPTA Accord developed

The NZEI, PPTA and the Ministry of Education have developed an Accord alongside the collective agreements to address a range of issues raised by the parties and to give effect to a high trust system, where the teaching profession is well regarded, sustainable, as well as being well placed for now and the future of learning.

There is no financial pre-commitment attached to the Accord but it will be an important mechanism to address teacher concerns that have built up over time.

Read the Accord [PDF, 199 KB].

Teaching Performance Appraisal

Teacher workload has been raised as an issue and in particular performance appraisals.

Teachers told us appraisal has been over engineered, the compliance and time demands has become burdensome and it did not add to productivity or translate into professional development.

It added weight and complexity to workload and took away time to teach.

The Accord is an opportunity to think about how to support high quality teacher development in a way that trusts teachers, principals and boards. 

Every three years teachers are required to submit an application to the Teaching Council for the renewal of their practising certificate with the endorsement from their principal that they meet professional standards.

NB: This factsheet was updated on 18 June 2019 to include Terms of Settlements and further details of the offer for Primary Principals in smaller schools (100 students and under).

 

 

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