New employment law will boost quality of early childhood education

NZEI Te Riu Roa welcomes the introduction of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill to Parliament, with Early Childhood Education set to be among the first sectors to be covered.

“This is an opportunity for kaiako and kaimahi to lock in the fair pay and working conditions they deserve, and by doing so ensure the provision of high-quality early childhood education for tamariki,” says NZEI Te Riu Roa ECE representative Virginia Oakly.

A Fair Pay Agreement could help the Government to deliver on its promise of the full rollout of parity rates for ECE teachers, who remain underpaid and undervalued compared to their colleagues in the rest of education.

It will also stop the race to the bottom by ECE employers when it comes to the terms and conditions of employment for unqualified teachers and support staff, many of whom are on minimum wages and aren’t benefiting from the introduction of parity rates.

“Fair Pay Agreements will mean ECE teachers finally get the same entitlement to common pay and conditions in a transparent, national legal agreement that their counterparts in primary and secondary schools have had for decades.

"This is what ECE teachers deserve and have been waiting too long for,” says NZEI Te Riu Roa President Liam Rutherford.

A Fair Pay Agreement will enable the industry to reach agreement on the issues most important to teachers, including adequate staffing and enough time to provide tamariki with world class early childhood education.

The working conditions of teachers and support staff create the learning conditions for tamariki, and a Fair Pay Agreement provides the opportunity to strengthen both.