Teacher bonus slashed
National had planned $17,500 to beginning teachers in all Auckland schools
The Government has cut back a plan by former education minister Nikki Kaye to pay a bonus of up to $17,500 to all beginning teachers who work in any Auckland school for at least three years.
The centrepiece of a minimal $9.5 million package to tackle the teacher shortage, announced yesterday, is extending the grant through the Voluntary Bonding Scheme for beginning teachers to Auckland schools in deciles 2 and 3 only, but with the maximum cut to $10,500.
The bonus currently applies only in decile 1 and isolated schools. Kaye had planned to extend it to all Auckland schools, at a cost which Education Minister Chris Hipkins said would have been $37.5m a year — creating a $37.5m “hole” in the education budget.
The one-off extension of the scheme will pay $10,500 to beginning teachers who start work in 2018 only in Auckland schools in deciles 2 and 3 and stay for at least three years.
It will also apply nationwide to beginning teachers starting in 2018 in science, technology, maths and te reo Ma¯ori, and those in Ma¯ori-language schools.
Hipkins said he was limiting the grant to $10,500 for teachers in the wider categories “to preserve the advantage the decile 1 schools currently have from the scheme”. The package also provides for 35 extra places on the Teach First scheme for secondary teachers to train on the job in lowdecile schools in 2019.
Expanding the Auckland Beginner Teacher Project from 40 places to 60 for 2018. The scheme pays schools to employ beginning teachers before their rolls grow enough to justify an extra teacher, but only 18 schools so far have applied to use it next year. Paying the cost of refresher courses in the first half of 2018 for teachers who have not obtained full registration six years after training. These courses cost $1490 on the job or $2490 in classrooms. A $1m fund that schools can apply to, in the remainder of this financial year only, to top up wages for non-registered teachers in specialised subjects such as trades and music. A $1m social media campaign to inform newly graduated teachers about the changes and to encourage teachers whose registrations have lapsed to return to teaching in 2018.
Hipkins also announced that education agencies have agreed on a fast-track process to approve teacher registration within 10 days and at no cost for teachers with approved qualifications from Britain, Ireland, Canada and Fiji.
But the package’s total cost of $9.5m over four years will be totally offset by cuts of $10m in teacher trainee scholarships, study awards, postgraduate teacher training and mentoring for new teachers, because of lower-than-expected demand for these funds.
Secondary Principals Association president Mike Williams said the package was too late to have much impact next year and did nothing to encourage more trainees into teaching in the longer term.
Auckland Primary Principals Association president Kevin Bush said the package was “a good first step. If I’m absolutely honest, I think there is not a lot in it for Auckland schools at the moment.”