Teachers say it’s not just money they’re after: ‘They’re leaving for the lifestyle’

Nearly half the country’s school principals are new to the job because their predecessors keep leaving for better-paid, less stressful jobs, it has been claimed.

As many as 50,000 teachers and principals from kindergartens and primary and secondary schools will take industrial action next week, saying the Ministry of Education’s latest offer is effectively a pay cut.

“What we’ve had is around $4000 offered on the base pay for teachers and then 3 percent or $2000 the second year,” NZEI president Mark Potter told RNZ on Friday. The NZEI represents staff at primary and early childhood education.

“That isn’t going to go anywhere near the CPI, so we know our members will be going backwards straight away.”

Inflation is running at about 7.2 percent. According to the Ministry of Education’s website, primary school teacher pay ranges from $51,358 up to $90,000, depending on their experience, qualifications and adherence to performance standards. Principals earn a minimum $98,031, and can get upwards of $180,000, depending on the size of their school roll, staffing levels and other factors.

“But it’s about more than the money – it’s about the conditions of work that we need for our teachers and our principals, be they kindergarten, primary school or whatever,” Potter said.

“At least 40 percent of principals in the country are in their first three years of being principals. And that’s just a shocking statistic.”

Kyle Brewerton, principal of Remuera Intermediate and president of the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association agreed pay was not the main reason teachers and principals are quitting.

“They’re leaving for the lifestyle – they just simply cannot do the work that’s being asked of them,” he told Morning Report.

“A lot of them are going and getting more money – a simple example would be HR. They’re going to work in HR departments. They’re people people, that’s what we do for a living. So they go work in HR and they can walk into jobs tomorrow.

“I have a personal example of someone who went in – a classroom teacher – who started on $100,000.”

Improving resourcing would go a long way to retaining teachers, he said.

“We don’t have the support in the classrooms that allows those kids with those complex needs to be able to function well in the classroom, and allow the other students in the class to also function well.

“When you’ve got a student in the class who perhaps becomes dysregulated, overwhelmed by what’s happening around them, you need someone in that moment to be alongside them, to support them, to talk with them, to calm them, be there, basically. If it’s not the classroom teacher then it has to be someone else. But if there’s no one else there, then it’s the classroom teacher.

“The impact of that is the rest of the class is impacted. Classroom teachers are feeling that because they obviously want to teach the entire class, but if those things are happening, they can’t.”

The Post-Primary Teachers’ Association – which represents secondary school teachers and staff – voted in December to hold a one-day strike in the first term of this year, on Thursday announcing it would take place on 16 March. NZEI members later decided to join them.

‘I can go somewhere else’

Potter compared the growing pressure on teachers to feeding a 15-year-old child on “the portions that mum and dad gave you when you were only four or five”.

“The money is a part of keeping people, but the most common thing people say when they leave is conditions. ‘The conditions are not good enough. I don’t have to put up with this. I don’t have to do this. I can go somewhere else and get sometimes more, but definitely, with better conditions than I currently have in teaching.'”

Mark Potter.
Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

Brewerton said resourcing was something the ministry got right during the Covid-19 disruptions.

“During that Covid period staffing was protected, because we saw that populations were shifting and attendance obviously was an issue, so all sorts of things were happening – it was making it difficult for schools to know exactly who they were serving, and so the ministry at the time protected staffing and said, ‘This is your resource, whether or not it actually matches what’s in front of you’.

“So the benefit of that, which was fantastic, was that we had smaller classes, we had more people in schools to support kids. Some of that was Covid response – so we deliberately had people in schools to walk alongside kids. So we’ve seen what’s possible and we’ve seen the impact it has. But those things have now gone, because obviously Covid is somewhat behind us, so we’re now back to what we used to have.

“But now we’re carrying three years of well, stress, trauma, recent trauma as well, now, with the floods and what have you, and that’s all rolling through our system. We’ve got kids now, particularly the little ones in our primary sector, we’ve had three years of their first years of schooling impacted.”

Ministry of Education pushes for facilitated bargaining

The ministry on Thursday said its offer provided “significant increases”, including boosting the top rate of pay for primary school teachers to $96,820.

“Primary teachers were also offered improvements to many of the conditions that NZEI has been looking to address, including making sure teachers could spend one day per fortnight out of the classroom for activities like student conferencing, assessment, and preparation.

“As well as kindergarten teachers receiving the same increases, we set aside over $380 million so that pay parity can be maintained for all registered early learning teachers.”

It has gone to the Employment Relations Authority to instigate facilitated bargaining “urgently” with the PPTA to try and avoid strike action.

“We have been working through PPTA’s priorities with them, however, there are still some outstanding issues.”

In December, the ministry said it expected a surplus of primary school teachers in 2023, but was not sure if secondary teachers would be in surplus or short supply.