The Associate Education Minister, David Seymour, is shifting the responsibility for setting the starting salaries of new Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers. Instead of following the government’s pay parity scheme aligned with primary educators, each centre will now decide how much to pay their new ECE teachers.
Seymour said this change will help ECE centres remain “viable” and avoid transferring costs to parents.
“From 1 July 2025 until 30 June 2027, education and care (including hospital-based) services that have opted into the pay parity scheme will be able to determine the initial salary step for newly certificated teachers and certificated teachers who are new to working in the New Zealand ECE sector (for example, a primary school teacher with no prior experience in ECE),” the Ministry of Education posted on its website.
These centres will no longer be required to consider factors such as “higher qualification groups, previous relevant work experience, and recognised service.”
Under the pay parity system, to be eligible for government funding, ECE centres are required to pay staff specific rates and provide pay increases at intervals set by the government, which, Seymour said, “is putting enormous funding pressure on the centres.”
“They can’t absorb it anymore, but the parents and the government, who are the funders of early childhood, are also under real pressure.”
“I have a strong belief that the people who operate early childhood centres up and down this country, who are there looking the person in the eye, are best placed to judge what their starting pay rates should be.”
For NZEI Te Riu Roa National Executive ECE representative Zane McCarthy, the change is “simply another attack on teachers’ pay.” He warned that it would allow employers to set starting salaries for new teachers without considering their qualifications, skills, or experience.
The Greens ECE spokesperson Benjamin Doyle also said the change would result in gradual wage reductions, causing more teachers to leave the profession.
“This is a move by the government to ensure that pay increases for teachers stay low while cutting costs to employers.”
However, Seymour explained that there is no reason new teachers wouldn’t receive the “going rate”; the difference is that their pay won’t be determined by a “rigid government framework.”