Latest pay offer unimpressive

It may take more than a pay bump to appease primary teachers and principals following the latest collective agreement offer from the Ministry of Education.

The ministry this week tabled a new collective agreement offer and primary teachers and principals are holding secret online ballots about accepting it. The NZEI union should know the result by Monday night.

Teachers have been offered a 3 per cent pay rise a year over three years, short of the 16 per cent the union is asking for, but Manawatu¯ educators are concerned it doesn’t cover anything else.

Manawatu¯ Principals’ Association president Wayne Jenkins said it wasn’t a good start.

‘‘Personally, I think it’s highly disappointing and it only attempts to address one of the many issues that we have,’’ he said. ‘‘They’ve made what I would call a modest pay offer that falls well short of what we were asking to retain good-quality teachers.

‘‘There’s absolutely no progress where they have offered to provide additional learning support and SENCO [special education needs co-ordinator] positions. That hasn’t been addressed.’’

Jenkins, also principal at Ross Intermediate School in Palmerston North, wants all of the issues looked at by the ministry.

‘‘The fact the ministry is focusing on pay is going to reinforce that message that teachers only want more money.

‘‘This week we haven’t been able to get a reliever when we needed. We had one class split across the school three days in a row.’’

NZEI lead negotiator and Manawatu¯ teacher Liam Rutherford said members would ask questions about whether or not the offer would make a difference to workload and for children with additional learning needs.

‘‘They’re not going to see a lot of things to fix those things.’’

Rutherford wouldn’t make any recommendations about accepting the offer, but said initial feedback suggested it might not be enough to get it over the line.