Ka puta Matariki, ka rere Whānui

Ko to tohu tēnā o te tau e!

Matariki re-appears, Whānui starts its flight

Being the sign of the new year!

Kia ora e te whānau

Principals reject collective agreement offer

You will all know by now that principals, who are members of NZEI, have voted to reject the latest collective agreement offer.

Whilst the primary teachers were successful in obtaining pay parity with their secondary colleagues, that was not the case for the primary principals. The offer to the primary principals was unchanged from the first round of negotiations.

NZPF has repeatedly said that the status of the profession must be lifted if we are to attract quality senior teachers into school leadership positions and have a sustainable work force for the future.  That means reduced workload, reduced working hours and reduced stress.  It means addressing learning support with workable solutions, increasing access to specialist support and increasing pay for principals.  

For some years we have had the situation where Deputy and Assistant Principals in larger schools can earn more than principals of smaller and rural schools. The teachers’ pay settlement will add many more to that list. With fewer incentives to move into principal leadership positions, and with the current average age of principals at 52 years, there are fears that we will not have the principals to lead our schools in the future.  A high percentage of our schools are smaller and while principals’ salaries are linked to roll numbers, we will struggle to find enough principals willing to drop in salary to take on these positions.

NZPF fully supports the aspiration of having 30% of Tamariki Māori enrolled in schools and kura offering Rāngai Māori Level 1 programmes by 2030. If we don’t address issues of principalship, we are less likely to achieve that target.

The Minister has said that there will not be any more money for principals in this round. It is our hope and expectation that there will be movement on this issue quickly and the Minister will address the issue of parity for principals as he has for teachers.

In the meantime, the NZPF executive supports NZEI’s suggested ‘next steps’ recommendations to disengage with the Ministry and not attend any Ministry related meetings until further notice.

This will be the last newsletter for the term because next week, we will all be in Auckland at the NZPF conference.

To those of you attending conference, I look forward to meeting you. 

Otherwise, have a restful break and I will be back with more news next term.

Ngā manaakitanga

Whetu Cormick
whetu@nzpf.ac.nz