Firstly, thank you so much for supporting not only our teachers and Principal, but also those from around the country.
Our teachers will be meeting with other North Canterbury teachers at Victoria Park at 10:30am this morning and will march to the cenotaph shortly after. We would value your support.
Here is a bit more information about today ...
There are two issues to bring to your attention - the plight of our primary teachers, and the situation for our primary principals. I'll start with the situation for our teachers, and hopefully you'll be able to get to the end to read about the principals as well ...
The NZEI (the only union for primary teachers) has identified four areas to improve in this round - 1) the crisis in education; 2) time and workload; 3) salary and relativities issues; and 4) career development.
Issue #1 involves the fact that schools are struggling to attract and retain great teachers. There is also a drop in the number of people choosing to train as teachers. The retention rate for teachers beyond five years is low, with many leaving the industry before five years are up. The union is asking for a significant pay increase to make the job of teaching more appealing.
The NZEI is addressing the second issue by raising the question of why primary teachers have one hour of release time per week as compared to five hours for a secondary teacher. There are also demands for increasing staffing in primary schools to match secondary staffing, but this falls outside of the collective negotiations.
Genuine pay parity for primary teachers is being addressed in the third issue. Officially we have parity for our teachers across both sectors, however in the secondary setting schools have many more Management Units (MUs) per teacher, and they are worth $1,000 more than they are in the primary setting. They also have Middle Management Allowances (MMAs) each worth $1,000, that do not even exist in the primary setting. Because of this, secondary teachers have significant advantage in pay that primary teachers do not have. This article is also very interesting reading, explaining that a new teacher will only be earning $1.99 above minimum wage per hour after April 1st.
The final issue looks at the capacity for teachers with additional skills to be recognised for them. This would include skill in Te Ao Māori, Pasifika education and special needs. This also delves into the issues of making principal positions in smaller schools desirable, as currently, people in leadership in large primary schools take a pay cut to lead a smaller school.
The Principal sector is a little more challenging to explain as there are two bargaining unions for primary principals - the NZEI or the PPCB. I am part of PPCB and fully support our teachers and principals in the NZEI. Each union has determined their claims, members of the NZEI have agreed to strike action, members of the PPCB have not. However, in a nutshell, both unions are seeking parity with principals in the secondary sector including the following:
- Equitable access to sabbaticals - there are currently more in the secondary sector than the primary, and they come with an expenses allowance that primary principals do not have access to.
- The same financial remuneration for wellbeing as the secondary sector.
- A significant injection of remuneration into U1 and U2 principalships (smaller schools), so they are given higher status than senior leadership in larger primary schools.
Did you know that 60% of all principals in Aotearoa | NZ are in their first five years of principalship, and an enormous number of schools have had more than one Principal in the past five years? A significant proportion of principals do not make it to, or beyond five years in the role. Can you imagine if the health sector's medical workforce were this inexperienced? The education sector is on the edge of a crisis, and it needs to be addressed now, despite the challenging economic environment we find ourselves in as a country.
You will have read my last two posts in the last two newsletters regarding equity in the education system. This is more than a Collective Agreement issue - it is a resourcing issue that can only be addressed by the Government investing more in the Vote Education dollar.
Again I will finish with our specific school disparities with a same size secondary school as our school (450 children). If we were resourced the same as a 450 student roll Secondary School, we would have:
- 5 additional teachers therefore reducing student:teacher ratios;
- 6 additional Management Units for staff leadership opportunities;
- Additional resourcing for admin staff;
- Extra planning and preparation time for teachers as outlined earlier.
I do not begrudge our secondary colleagues these things - but do not understand why the same investment is not put in at the primary level where there is just as much need, but different!
Keep smiling
Shane