After RNZ revealed last Friday that the Government intends to axe the pay parity scheme for education and care teachers, in part to give providers “greater autonomy… to negotiate” with teachers about pay, the Office of Early Childhood Education has been fact checking claims by ECE business lobbyists that pay parity has caused more services to close.
In our view, there is no evidence of this, based on the available statistics.
In a Cabinet paper from April, which was publicly released on July 17, the Ministry of Education wrote to associate minister of education David Seymour that: “The options in this paper begin the process of proactively moving away from the opt-in pay parity system and providing greater autonomy to providers to negotiate with teachers on matters of pay. The wider funding review you are seeking Cabinet approval for provides the opportunity to complete this process”.
