{"id":7939,"date":"2020-09-17T08:13:55","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T20:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oece.nz\/general\/pay-parity\/ministry-of-education-evidence\/"},"modified":"2021-08-05T10:35:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T22:35:57","slug":"ministry-of-education-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oece.nz\/public\/big-issues\/pay-parity\/ministry-of-education-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Synthesis of Evidence on Pay Parity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Evidence on Pay Parity.
By Dr Sarah Alexander, Karen Girvan, Bethany O\u2019Hagan, and David Haynes with Tolo Pereira and Heather Te Huia.
Sept 17, 2020. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following is a synthesis of evidence for the Ministry of Education, as the Government\u2019s lead advisor on education, to use to inform its work towards ensuring all trained and certificated teachers in NZ\u2019s publicly-funded early childhood education (ECE) system have pay parity with school teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Education is \u201c<\/strong>the Government\u2019s lead advisor on New Zealand’s education system.\u201d It shapes \u201cdirection for education agencies and providers\u201d and it contributes \u201cto the Government\u2019s goals<\/a> for education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At present the ministry facilitates cost savings for the government and service providers in teacher wages and salaries. The effect is an ECE system that delivers inequitable and variable outcomes, outcomes that are directly contrary to government\u2019s stated policy and hinder government\u2019s ability to achieve its goals for education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is strong public support for ECE teachers to have pay parity. More than 15,000 people signed a petition last year calling for the House of Representatives to urge the Ministry of Education to ensure pay parity <\/a>with primary teachers for all ECE teachers working in any licensed publicly funded provider. A pay parity campaign booklet <\/a>set out key arguments and was a useful educational\/ informational tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is now also a political will for all ECE teachers to have pay parity. The Labour Party has given a pre-election promise that it will spend an extra $600 million over the next four years on boosting ECE teachers’ pay (it has not yet given a date for when pay parity will be achieved). The National Party has also promised to continue to lift minimum pay requirements for qualified ECE staff and it has promised to reduce the funding gap between kindergarten and non-kindergarten ECE services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at the political level, the ease and speed with which pay parity can be implemented, and the urgency and the need to prioritise this<\/a> for the wellbeing of the sector and children, is not well understood. Also not well understood is that closing the funding gap will not bring pay parity for teachers as service providers may use increased funding for other purposes \u2013 therefore there also needs to be accountability for how funding is spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key facts on pay parity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  1. The Ministry of Education has the ability to implement pay parity using the mechanism of salary attestation and it can do this as soon as the next funding round. <\/li>
  2. There are ECE service providers who agree to be accountable for matching wages to pay parity rates to receive funding at the same level as kindergartens.<\/li>
  3. The effects of an absence of pay parity for many ECE teachers is harmful to the quality of ECE for children and outcomes.<\/li>
  4. Government has a dominant influence on what teachers are paid in all ECE services, including privately-owned services.<\/li>
  5. The question to ask is not how much it will cost to fund pay parity, but when will the use of teachers as cheap labour to make cost savings in ECE, end?<\/li>
  6. The ECE teacher remuneration 2020 survey<\/a> results provide insights for the ministry to use in its advice to the minister and government.<\/li>
  7. Continuing to provide funding for ECE teachers to have pay parity only if they are employed by a Free Kindergarten Association is an unbalanced and unjust approach. It is also contrary to the provision of \u2018equity from the start\u2019 \u2013 a key value of the Early Learning Action Plan.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Salary attestation is the tool available to the MoE to implement pay parity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The Ministry of Education has the ability to implement pay parity using the mechanism of salary attestation and it can do this as soon as the next funding round. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Pay parity for all ECE teachers can be put in place easily and efficiently. IT system changes would not be necessary since the Ministry of Education already has a funding mechanism for service provider accountability in place. \u2018Salary attestation\u2019 is the method used by the ministry to give assurance that service providers are paying at the bottom rate of the Kindergarten Teachers, Head Teachers and Senior Teachers’ Collective Agreement 2019-2022 (KTCA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It would be simple to replace the single salary rate with a salary scale for service providers to access funding at the higher (pay parity \u2018kindergarten\u2019) funding table rates. Making this change will give a strong incentive to service providers to lift pay rates and they will be accountable for paying their teachers at pay parity levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note: service providers do not need to be party to the kindergarten teachers\u2019 collective agreement, or to any union agreement for that matter<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ECE service providers agree to be accountable <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    There are ECE service providers who agree to be accountable for matching wages to pay parity rates to receive funding at the same level as kindergartens<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When asked why since 2011 there have been different funding rate tables for kindergarten and non-kindergarten teacher-led centres, the ministry explained that it was due to \u201cthe Government of the day deciding that it would not pass on the higher rates to education and care services if there was no assurance they were paying KTCA level salaries.<\/em> (OIA request response by the Ministry of Education to James Lochead-Macmillan).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, this was not the fault of service providers – the ministry had not required service providers to be accountable for matching school\/kindergarten teacher salaries. When the 2011 decision was made, service providers were not asked if they would guarantee to pay their staff at KTCA rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We asked early childhood service providers if they would provide such a guarantee. Four hundred and sixty-one teacher-led centres and 68 teacher-led home-based services agree to pay their teachers at KTCA level salaries in return for funding at the higher rates<\/a>. \u00a0They agree to sign an attestation that they are paying at KTCA level salaries and provide the ministry with such financial information about their organisation as the ministry may reasonably request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Assuming that the Ministry of Education did not mislead Cabinet in 2011 about the reason why the government should only fund centres at the higher rates that are bound by the KTCA, it should now inform the government that service providers who agree to be accountable for paying their teachers at KTCA salary rates cannot continue to be cut out of receiving the same funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The current situation is harming child outcomes <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The effects of an absence of pay parity for many ECE teachers is harmful to the quality of ECE for children and outcomes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What is it that children need the most in early childhood education? It is to have teachers who are well trained and remunerated appropriately to provide high-quality early childcare and teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has argued the need for countries to invest in improved training and qualifications since this affects the quality of ECE and with this, child development outcomes (\u201cStarting Strong II\u201d report, OECD, 2006). However, with improved training and qualifications comes demands for pay to be increased to reflect this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Data from the NZ ECE teacher pay survey<\/a> shows that low pay is a major factor in teachers frequently changing jobs and leaving the early childhood teaching profession.\u00a0 What we see is that ECE services that provide pay parity<\/a> attract and keep high quality teachers \u2013 these staff grow as a team and become highly experienced, high functioning, and cohesive teams. Because of this, teachers can constantly improve the benefits the service is able to provide for children and families from one year to the next. When this is not the case standards can more easily slip, children\u2019s learning can fall between the cracks, and the teaching team can struggle to develop as time is taken for each new member to learn the way things are done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the international research literature on ECE quality, a stable staff is linked to positive outcomes in children and is a main indicator of quality (alongside group size, adult-child ratio, and trained teachers). Children who form strong caring reciprocal relationships with their teachers have improved outcomes. But, when staff turnover is high babies, toddlers and young children can struggle to form trusting caring relationships with their teachers. Constantly changing teachers means low quality education for children because it takes time to get to know each child well \u2013 their interests, needs, personalities, and learning dispositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Around 77% of all children are enrolled in teacher-led services that are not kindergartens. Without pay parity for ECE teachers, children attending ECE services cannot enjoy equitable experiences. All this means that the current funding regime for ECE drives outcomes that are directly contrary to government policy. Yet, the notion of \u2018equity from the start\u2019 is a key value of the early learning action plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Government is the dominant influence on what teachers are paid <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    When pay increases are given to school teachers and teachers employed by kindergarten associations, the same is not guaranteed for all other teachers with identical qualifications and meeting identical requirements for registration and a practising certificate with the Teaching Council. Kindergarten Associations are one of many ECE organisations that sit outside the public system. So, the situation is that the government relies on the goodwill and sacrifice of ECE teachers not employed in centres that are owned by kindergarten associations to accept lower wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When it comes to wages and conditions of work, employers can pass the buck to the government due to their funding being less than what kindergarten associations are paid to meet the costs of providing early childhood education and care. The unfortunate consequence of this is that teachers can find themselves bearing the brunt of tensions between government and employers over funding and this makes them vulnerable to exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The cost of funding pay parity is not the stumbling block<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The question to ask is not how much it will cost to fund pay parity, but when will the use of teachers as cheap labour to make cost savings in ECE, end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Ministry of Education advised the government on 31 January 2011 that restricting the salary part of funding rates to only those services that were party to the KTCA would free up $20m per annum from the Budget package to meet costs arising from 20 Hours Free ECE and increasing participation previously paid for by parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It also advised that this should be a short-term measure only:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Providing a salary increase only to those services bound by the KTCA provides those services with higher funding rates, and could be seen as an untargeted and unfair price advantage. We would not recommend this as a long-term strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The ministry needs to remind the government and repeat very clearly its advice that the funding change was planned as a short-term measure only, and that a reversal of this funding decision is now overdue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The ECE teacher remuneration 2020 survey results provide insights <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Key results and points arising from the 2020 teacher pay survey<\/a> are as follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There were teaching staff being paid less than the minimum adult wage. There were trained and certificated teachers being paid less than the minimum wage set by the Ministry of Education for salary attestation. On average every teacher worked an additional four hours unpaid per week, just to get the work done that was required of them. Key reasons included understaffing in their service resulting in needing to work when not paid, parents being late to collect their children, other staff needing support, and not getting enough non-contact time to do child assessments, etc. From these findings the following questions arise:<\/p>\n\n\n\n