They're appalled and insulted by the Government's latest pay offer. For the record, the Governments offered a 1% pay rise every year for three years in collective agreement negotiations. PPTA President Chris Abercrombie says the offer is the lowest increase in a generation and 18-19,000 teachers will be out protesting today. Chris Abercrombie said the Government's offer was appalling, and argued that it failed to help efforts to recruit and retain teachers within the workforce.
The Government's also failing, he says, to address other PPTA claims – more pastoral care staffing, professional development for curriculum and assessment, more support for curriculum leaders who will be working on upcoming NCEA changes. If no progress is made, we have been warned, the PPTA says they will roster students home and not teach certain year levels on specific days from September 15th.
If this all sounds familiar, it is. Here's a press release from Jan Tinetti in 2023, basically two years ago, when she was Minister for Education. The Government has agreed to support the independent arbitration panel's recommendation to increase secondary teachers' base salaries by 14.5% by December 2024. The increase will see beginner teachers receive an annual increase of almost $10,000 in addition to their $7,210 lump sum payment.
If this all sounds familiar, it is. Here's a press release from Jan Tinetti in 2023, basically two years ago, when she was Minister for Education. The Government has agreed to support the independent arbitration panel's recommendation to increase secondary teachers' base salaries by 14.5% by December 2024. The increase will see beginner teachers receive an annual increase of almost $10,000 in addition to their $7,210 lump sum payment.
The offer provides an increase of 36% for teachers at the top of the pay scale. She acknowledges the disruption to students, young people, and their parents who were kept out of the classroom. The panel's recommendation adds an extra cost of approximately $680 million to the $3.76 billion already set aside in the budget to settle teachers’ and principals’ agreements. That money includes an increase to other education collective agreements which will flow on from the decision.
So where are we at? Surely the PPTA doesn't expect 14% increases every bloody year. I mean, that's farcical. And if the strike and the promise of more strikes and rostering students home and not teaching certain year levels sounds familiar it’s because in 2023, that's what happened from March, all through the school yea —never the holidays— there were strikes. Year levels were rostered home. There were national strikes. As the teacher said, we haven't received enough from past governments and this Labour government, so it went to independent arbitration and the panel recommended that the base salaries be increased by 14.5%. Which came in in December 2024. Eight months later, they're striking again?
Does this happen every year? Every year we get this. Surely if you're striking and the deal is set that you get pay increases and they come in in December 2024, wouldn't you be factoring in that this will last you for a bit? That that this will do you for the next couple of years? Or parents and teachers going to be seeing kids locked out every year over months and months and months. This kind of disruption is completely, I would have thought, utterly unacceptable. If there hadn't been a pay settlement in 2023, which came into effect in December 24, fill your boots. I'd be out there with a bloody placard with you. But how can you justify going out again and closing the classrooms again after the enormous disruption of Covid? And then the enormous disruption of 2023 with national strikes and rolling strikes.
So where are we at? Surely the PPTA doesn't expect 14% increases every bloody year. I mean, that's farcical. And if the strike and the promise of more strikes and rostering students home and not teaching certain year levels sounds familiar it’s because in 2023, that's what happened from March, all through the school yea —never the holidays— there were strikes. Year levels were rostered home. There were national strikes. As the teacher said, we haven't received enough from past governments and this Labour government, so it went to independent arbitration and the panel recommended that the base salaries be increased by 14.5%. Which came in in December 2024. Eight months later, they're striking again?
Does this happen every year? Every year we get this. Surely if you're striking and the deal is set that you get pay increases and they come in in December 2024, wouldn't you be factoring in that this will last you for a bit? That that this will do you for the next couple of years? Or parents and teachers going to be seeing kids locked out every year over months and months and months. This kind of disruption is completely, I would have thought, utterly unacceptable. If there hadn't been a pay settlement in 2023, which came into effect in December 24, fill your boots. I'd be out there with a bloody placard with you. But how can you justify going out again and closing the classrooms again after the enormous disruption of Covid? And then the enormous disruption of 2023 with national strikes and rolling strikes.
How can it be in the best interests of young people and the profession to disrupt the schools in this way? You know, for $3.76 billion for teachers’ and principals’ salary and package agreements, maybe we could spend that a different way. You know, with AI here now, the PPTA has to be very, very careful that they don't strike themselves out of existence.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
They'll need to make a stronger case that they're underpaid given the worsening performance of children in the education system.
Teachers are the second-most important adults in youngsters' lives and many a career has begun with interest being sparked in a discipline by an inspiring teacher. But teachers need the right working conditions to be able to perform, and that is where I think the problem lies rather than with just the salary.
I started my professional life as a science teacher almost half a century ago and taught at high schools in NZ and Aus (Qld). The differences were striking. I had far fewer contact hours in Aus and two lab assistants, one full-time (in a rural school of just over 300 pupils). That was over 40 years ago but I sometimes get the impression that the differential remains.
In response to Anonymous 2:37pm, I must add that secondary school teachers are now burdened with having to learn how to teach reading and primary school maths , because those coming from primary schools are so deficient in these basics. As if secondary school teaching wasn't hard enough with stroppy teenagers with no manners , bullying and rude and being thoroughly ignorant as well . Our entire education system is a disaster . It is insane ideologies that have made them that way. That is not the teachers' fault but rather theorists from academia and the MIn. of Ed. I see no big problem with AI or on line teaching . Even remote laboratory work can be done this way.
A family member, a STEM subject teacher left secondary teaching because he could immediately get twice the pay elsewhere.
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