November offers to teachers and principals
The Ministry of Education made new offers to members covered by the Primary Principals' and Primary Teachers' collective agreements in November. These offers were rejected by principals and teachers in a secret ballot in early December.
Find out what the offer would mean for your salary.
Or, for a more detailed break-down of how the total proposed salary changes would impact pay packets for teachers, go here.
Teachers' offer at a glance
We received this offer from the Ministry in November 2018.
Recruitment and retention
Our original claim
Address recruitment and retention issues by valuing the work of teachers and ensuring that being a teachers is an attractive career option through:
- Increasing pay by 16% increase over term of CA
- 2 year term
- Renewing the salary comparability clauses with secondary teachers
- Removing the qualifications cap on the salary scale
- Applying increases in the settlement to union members only
The Ministry's previous offer
- 3 year term from date of settlement
- Increase base salary scale by 3% each year from date of settlement.
- Lift the maximum salary step for Q1 and Q2 teachers one additional step from January 2020
- Merge the first four steps of the salary scale
- Renew the salary comparability clause
- Limit the payment of resource teacher units to one additional unit per person
The Ministry's new offer
- 3 year term from date of settlement
- Increase base salary scale by 3% each year from date of settlement
- Add an additional new salary step for Q3 teachers to new max step 9 and add an additional new salary step for Q3+,Q4, Q5 teachers to new max step 10 from November 2020
- Lift the maximum salary step for Q1 teachers by 4 steps to the new max step 9 and Q2 teachers by 3 steps to the new max step 9 from November 2020
- Merge the first four steps of the salary scale
- Renew the salary comparability clause
- Limit the payment of the additional unit to resource teachers, upon appointment (clause 3.3.4), to one unit per person
- One-off gross payment of $500 for all NZEI Te Riu Roa members
Key questions to discuss and consider
Do you think the increase offered is sufficient to address the recruitment and retention issues?
Do you think there is enough benefit in the current offer to accept a 3 year term?
Would you be willing to accept an offer that doesn’t contain a member only benefit?
Time to teach, time to lead
Our original claim
Make sure teachers have time to teach, are well supported to meet the learning needs of all children and our existing onerous workloads are addressed by:
- Introducing staffing and resourcing for every school to have a SENCO
- Doubling the amount of CRT available to teachers and renaming it ‘professional practice time’
- Increase professional leadership staffing to allow more release for teachers in leadership positions
- Reduce curriculum staffing ratio to reduce class size and allow for more teachers to share workload
- Increasing the number of resource teacher positions nationally
The Ministry's previous offer
- Change the Tutor Teacher Allowance to a Mentor Teacher allowance and make it available in more circumstances
- Enable teachers to take up CoL leadership roles.
- "We understand that your members will be interested in how they will be involved in content and nature of learning support roles and as we discussed we are open to clarifying this with you" - quote from the Secretary of Education.
The Ministry's new offer
No change from previous offer
Key questions to discuss and consider
Is there enough in the offer that would address your workload?
Career development opportunities
Our original claim
Ensure that there are attractive career development opportunities available for teachers through the continuation of the Career Framework Development Work Programme
The Ministry's previous offer
‘Update the PPCA/PTCA Career Framework Development Terms of Reference to reflect the interdependency with the development of the Education Workforce Strategy and milestones for continued work during the term of a renewed agreement’
The Ministry's new offer
No change from previous offer
Other matters
The Ministry's previous offer
Make maternity grant accessible to the primary care giver (regardless of gender)
The Ministry's new offer
No change from previous offer
The Ministry's previous offer
Various language changes intended to improve the flow and readability of the agreement
The Ministry's new offer
No change from previous offer
Principals' offer at a glance
We received this offer from the Ministry on 9 Novermber 2018.
Recruitment and retention
Our original claim
Address recruitment and retention issues by valuing the work of principals and ensuring that being a principal is an attractive career option through:
- 16% increase over term of CA effective from the expiry date (16/5/2018)
- 2 year term.
- Conflate U1 and U2 grades into U3.
- Agreement to pass on terms and conditions to non-members 12 months after date of ratification.
The Ministry's previous offer
- 3 year term from date of settlement
- Increase base salary scale by 4.5%+4.5%+4.4% a year from date of settlement for principals in U1 and U2 schools
- Increase base salary scale by 3% each year from date of settlement for principals in U3 and above schools
- Changes to how salary components are set out in the CA (that don’t affect the value of salary)
The Ministry's new offer
- 3 year term from date of settlement
- Increase base salary scale by 4.5%+4.5%+4.4% a year from date of settlement for principals in U1 and U2 schools
- Increase base salary scale by 3% each year from date of settlement for principals in U3 and above schools
- Changes to how salary components are set out in the CA (that don’t affect the value of salary)
- One off gross payment of $500 for all NZEI Te Riu Roa members
Questions to discuss and consider
- Do you think the increase offered is sufficient to address the recruitment and retention issues?
- Do you think there is enough benefit in the current offer to accept a 3 year term?
Time to lead
Our original claim
Ensure principals have time to lead and our existing onerous workloads are addressed by:
- Introducing staffing and resourcing for every school to have a SENCO.
- Ensure every school has a minimum 2 FTTE staffing.
- Increase professional leadership staffing to allow more release for principals and other leaders.
- Reduce curriculum staffing ratio for years 4-8 from 1:29 down to 1:25 to reduce class size and allow for more teachers to share workload.
The Ministry's new offer
- Additional operational funding for schools with less than 2 FTTE to employ a second person during contact time
Question to consider and discuss
"We understand that your members will be interested in how they will be involved in content and nature of learning support roles and as we discussed we are open to clarifying this with you" - quote from the Secretary of Education.
Career development opportunities
Our original claims
Ensure that there are attractive career development opportunities available for principals through the continuation of the Career Framework Development Work Programme. This needs to include a focus on recognition and support for Māori, pasifika and special education roles.
The Ministry's previous offer
‘Update the PPCA/PTCA Career Framework Development Terms of Reference to reflect the interdependency with the development of the Education Workforce Strategy and milestones for continued work during the term of a renewed agreement’
The Ministry's new offer
No change from the previous offer
Other matters
The Ministry's previous offer
Make maternity grant accessible to the primary care giver (regardless of gender)
The Ministry's previous offer
Various language changes intended to improve the flow and readability of the agreement (related to surplus staffing, the isolation allowance and technical wording)
The Ministry's new offer
No change from the previous offer
The Ministry's new offer
No change from the previous offer
Stand with us.
Every day, over 47,000 NZEI Te Riu Roa members go to work to educate our kids and keep schools and centres running. We're standing together for children and their learning, and we think you should be a part of it too.