Teachers OK new pay deal
THE protracted wage dispute between Tasmania’s teachers and the State Government has ended with 95 per cent of Australian Education Union members voting to accept the new teachers’ agreement.
Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said teachers would receive a 6.55 per cent pay rise over three years after the vote.
The deal follows the state’s nurses accepting the Government’s pay offer in July.
“The agreement will see teachers receive the pay rise they deserve and deliver greater classroom support for students to help improve educational outcomes,” Mr Rockliff said.
He said the new agreement provided a “reasonable and affordable” pay rise for all teachers and addressed workload issues for primary school teachers, giving them more time each week for preparation, marking and planning.
He said an additional 85 specialist teachers would be employed in Tasmania’s primary schools to ensure educational instruction time is maintained and a review of reporting requirements would be conducted with a view to reducing the reporting workload.
AEU Tasmania president Helen Richardson welcomed the deal.
“This is a great outcome for teachers and students, as central to the agreement is more specialist teacher time for students and class planning and preparation time for teachers,” she said.
“Tasmanian primary teachers will have nation-leading instructional load in 2020 which means that, while students will receive the same amount of class time, the recruitment of additional specialist teachers, in particular STEM, will mean primary teachers have an additional two hours a fortnight quarantined for core work like lesson planning and tailoring learning to meet individual student need.”
Ms Richardson said because most teachers are women, it was great news that paid parental leave had increased to 16 weeks and employer superannuation contributions would continue when employees were on workers compensation or unpaid parental leave.
Teachers have also been told there will be improved inclass support for students who require educational adjustments, extra support for early career teachers through professional learning, mentoring and additional time off class in the second year to assist in attaining full teacher registration.
Under the deal, teacher assistants who have progressed to working as education support specialists will have that classification in the award and will receive the same paid school holidays as teachers.