Early childhood education leaders are calling for the Government to retain pay parity in an open letter to be delivered on Friday.
The letter comes after months of government attacks on regulation that guides the early childhood education (ECE) sector, including scrapping pay parity for teachers who are relieving, on fixed-term contracts, or newly qualified.
Sally Griffin, a kindergarten head teacher and convenor of the NZEI Te Riu Roa early childhood education national leadership group, says educators now fear the Government will scrap pay parity altogether.
“The idea of losing the pay parity scheme that we fought so hard for over many decades is terrifying. It would be particularly heart-breaking, especially after having our pay equity claim scrapped in May.”
“The introduction of pay parity has been life changing for many financially, as for a long time, many teachers in the private sector didn't earn much more than the minimum wage.”
In July, a Ministry of Education report provided to Associate Minister of Education David Seymour around options to reduce staffing costs came to light, suggesting using the current ECE Funding Review as an opportunity to scrap the pay parity scheme altogether.
Sally says while the current pay parity scheme isn’t perfect, it doesn’t make sense to get rid of it and cut teachers’ future pay rates in the process.
"Pay parity has meant lower turnover of teachers, which is vital so that children have the consistency and stability they need to build trust in their kaiako.”
As teachers’ pay has historically been defined by the age group they teach, pay parity sought to align early childhood teacher pay rates with kindergarten pay rates.
The broad aspiration for pay parity was to see all early childhood educators paid at the same rates as primary school teachers.
Early childhood teacher and NZEI Te Riu Roa National Executive sector representative Zane McCarthy says many early educators feel the sector is headed in the wrong direction.
“Early childhood education kaiako are feeling burnt out. Combine this with unworkable minimum teacher to child ratios set by government, difficulty getting learning support for children who need it, an ongoing teacher shortage, and now the potential scrapping of the pay parity scheme – the overall picture is pretty grim,” he says.
“We implore the Government to listen to the professionals who work with our youngest ākonga day in and day out: quality early education really matters. Our working conditions are children’s learning conditions. We need to be able to attract and retain qualified, skilled early childhood teachers in our sector.”
The open letter is backed by early childhood academics, Education International, children's advocacy organisations, whānau, and unions across Aotearoa.
Early childhood education leaders hand over their open letter outside Education Minister Erica Stanford's office in Browns Bay, Tāmaki Makaurau on Friday 12 September at 12.30pm.
Members will be available for interviews and photos.