Pay equity celebration not for everyone

While teacher aides were yesterday celebrating winning a long battle for a pay rise, another group of educators saw the announcement as salt in the wound.

Yesterday, the Government said it had settled a pay equity claim for 22,000, predominately women, teacher aides.

New pay rates will range from $21.20 to $34.68 an hour, and will be effective from February 12, 2020. That meant a pay rise of $4-$6 an hour for most.

However, the chief executive of the Early Childhood Council, Peter Reynolds, said while early childhood education (ECE) teachers did not begrudge the teacher aides, it was another example of them being left out in the cold.

‘‘The feedback I have received is fairly negative. Not so much because they don’t

support the idea of teacher aides receiving some sort of increase, but the timing of it is really poor.’’

He said a recent rise in the base rate for ECE teachers was higher than the Government funding given to centres to fund the pay increase.

He said teachers were questioning why they spent three to four years studying for a qualification, when teacher aides are now, in some cases, receiving more money without the debt of studying.

Meanwhile, president of NZEI Te Riu Roa, Liam Rutherford, said people were delighted with the teacher aide settlement.

‘‘It’s given us that evidence-based justification that for decades teacher aides had been underpaid and undervalued, because they are predominately women.

‘‘I think this is going to do such a good job of attracting other people into the profession because they are going to want to become a teacher aide, because they see it as a career now.’’

Rutherford said NZEI was working towards pay parity in the early childhood sector. ‘‘I think what the teacher aides have shown over the past four years is when you come together as a collective group around an issue you can win big.’’

‘‘When you come together as a collective group around an issue, you can win big.’’

Liam Rutherford

NZEI Te Riu Roa president