The government has accepted an arbitration panel's recommendation to increase secondary teacher pay by about 14.5 percent.
The change adds $680 million to the $3.76 billion set aside by the government for settling teacher and principal pay agreements, coming out of current education budget savings and the 2024 cost pressure allowance.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti said it meant beginning teachers will get nearly $10,000 a year more on top of a $7210 lump sum payment.
"The offer provides an increase of 36 percent for teachers at the top of the pay scale since we've been in Government, compared to a 10 percent increase under the last National government," she said.
Tinetti said the government only had a certain amount of money to work with, and the main savings of $374m had been found from the Ministry of Education's departmental funding, a forecast underspend on staffing as a result of newer teachers employed, removal of the option to 'bank staffing' at schools, deferring Te Ao Marama and Hobsonville Point Secondary School projects in the Public Private Partnership Schools Expansion Programme, and rephasing the current operating funding.
"There will be some projects within the ministry that they will have to cut back on, but that will come from their departmental funding," she said.
"We've given this very very careful consideration. Since the arbitration panel's report came out we've been working through this so that any reprioritisation and changing around in the funding is going to have the least impact on young people's learning as we possibly can.
"The options that we've landed on here will have the least impact."
She said additional allowance for tikanga expertise were included, as recommended by the panel, and in line with the primary teachers' agreement.
Minister of Education Jan Tinetti. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
"There are teachers who do have a different loading on their expectations around aspects such as taking kapa haka or karanga or whaikōrero, those are really important within our schooling system."
She noted kura kaupapa Māori and Māori-medium education schools were excluded from the bank staffing option removal.
"What that means is, we have a shortage of reo teachers and there are different ways that they use their funding within that and we want to encourage them to be able to continue to provide outstanding Māori programmes.
"I'm very proud of this offer, I'm very very hopeful. The executive of the PPTA have expressed their support to the arbitration panel's recommendations. I'm hopeful that the PPTA members will too, but the ball's in their court now."
She said the base salaries would start to go up in increments as set out in the terms of settlement in the collective agreement, if the deal was accepted.
She did not have specifics on how long it would take, but the government would be aiming to meet similar timeframes to the six-week period taken to put the primary teachers' deal through.
Tinetti said the government would also look at the panel's recommendations for ways to avoid having as much disruption and pressure put on the system in future negotiations.
"The unions have said that they agree with this too ... it has not been easy, we know that this is a fiscally difficult time and this is not an easy process to go through," she said.
"I thank the arbitration panel for also putting the teachers at the front of this, and giving us a way forward as well."
She said the unified base scale included a pay parity clause for secondary through to primary through to kindergarten.
"There will be those knock-on impacts that come through. I have spoken to both unions just in the last half hour to give them a heads up that this is what the government's offering.
"We know that we've got a strong workforce, we know that we've got the best people in front of our young people, that was what we made our decision on to go with that recommendation, and that has outweighed everything else that we have weighed up here.
"To encourage people into teaching, we want to have a good salary - I think we're hitting that with this - but we also need to be mindful that we're keeping a relativity there as well. I was trying to remember my own starting salary which was $19,000, that what we've got here today is pretty good in comparison to what we had."
She said she was the head of the NZEI union's primary principals negotiation team in the years during the previous National government and "it was tough, we weren't being listened to, and that's why I'm proud of this offer because while they have been protracted negotiations we have listened to our teachers".
The recommendations for a trial of cultural advisors and a $5000 lump sum payment were also accepted by the government, she said.
She said she expected the likelihood of teachers getting similar pay increases in the next decade would probably depend on inflation rates.
She said it was the government's "final offer".
"It is our final offer. We had an offer that we thought was a really really good offer in the last time round, today we are saying that the arbitration panel has made a different recommendation - we are agreeing to that and it's a really really good offer."
"I'm excited for them and I'm excited for the valuing of teachers that this government has shown today."
