- Hon David Seymour
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the Government has listened to the early childhood education sector's calls to simplify paying ECE relief teachers. Today two simple changes that will reduce red tape for ECEs are being announced, in the run-up to larger changes that will come in time from the regulation and funding reviews of the sector.
At present, ECE centres must meet set proportions of certificated teacher hours to qualify for higher funding bands. However, a service has discretion to use a non-certificated teacher for up to 80 hours a funding period as long as it has demonstrated that it attempted to find a certificated teacher first.
"It leads to a pointless exercise where ECE operators must show they tried, even if there may be no realistic chance of getting a certificated reliever, especially in remote areas. This is the sort of rule that makes no difference to children's education, except distracting centre managers from it. From October it will be gone," Mr Seymour says.
"The second change announced today relates to relief teachers and the pay parity salaries they must be paid. At present, all certificated teachers, including relievers, used by a service must be paid at the pay parity salary steps required as a condition of the particular pay parity funding rates the service opts into.
"From October, only permanent part- or full-time certificated teachers will need to be paid the required pay steps. The intention of pay parity was to reward ECE operators who employ certificated teachers in full- or part-time permanent roles, but extending that to relievers has created unintended outcomes.
"Relief teachers can demand top dollar because they know their pay goes towards the centre's funding calculations. In an environment of teacher shortages, this has become another administrative complication that drives up costs. We are ensuring that pay parity will be calculated according to what permanent staff are paid, not relievers. This simplification will also come into place by October.
"Because centres are spending more to pay for relief teachers, their budgets are being constrained, along with their ability to hire permanent teachers. This also means that some children do not have consistent teachers in place. Simplifying the formula will allow centre operators to focus on delivering a consistent service for the children, instead of paperwork."
Mr Seymour says that the Government is currently doing a regulatory review of the ECE sector and will also be carrying out an ECE funding review.
"In the meantime, we are making this immediate change to help resolve an issue that is seriously hindering providers. This is a proactive step to help services manage costs, without compromising the quality of education or costing the taxpayer more.
"This announcement complements the decision to reverse changes to the Person(s) Responsible role, and to remove network management legislation earlier this year to make it easier to establish and operate early learning services," says Mr Seymour.
