Teacher aide mana taurite / pay equity settlement
Teacher aides have now endorsed this pay equity settlement!
Background
Today's teacher aides are highly skilled educators, assisting the learning and ensuring the wellbeing of children with often complex medical, physical, learning and/or behavioural needs. However, their pay and conditions do not fairly value this work.
In September 2017, NZEI Te Riu Roa lodged a pay equity claim on behalf of all teacher aides, providing evidence that their work is mostly done by women and that it is undervalued as "women's work."
This settlement is the result of the collective strength and action of NZEI Te Riu Roa members and a long pay equity process that has involved evidence gathering, interviews with comparitors and negotiations with the Ministry of Education.
About the settlement
The pay equity settlement for teacher aides includes pay increases, changes to the way skills are assessed, a new allowance, changes to how much hours can be varied, and the development of career pathways.
Combining the 2019 collective agreement pay rise with the pay equity settlement, teacher aides received pay rises of 23-34% across 2020.
That's an increase of $4 to $6.60 an hour, recognising the true value of teacher aides' skills, responsibilities and experience.
It is important to know that these pay increases are funded by the Ministry increasing the operations grant every term - based on actual hours teacher aides work - and then requiring schools to specifically target that money to the teacher aide pay increases.
For teacher aides who first started on or after 29 November 2019
Click here to download pay table as a PDF
Other settlement details
Teacher aide job descriptions
NZEI Te Riu Roa have put together some guidance on what a job descriptions should look like for a teacher aide. This is to help ensure that your job descriptions reflect the work you do.