‘Teachers can expect $3400’

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 6

‘Teachers can expect $3400’

PA' Wellington The average secondary school teacher can expect a $3400 back-pay cheque this month, according to calculations by the Post Primary Teachers’ Association. That is the amount teachers at the top end of the basic scale can bxpect in back-pay and salary increases on April 30. The figure, taken before tax and superannuation deductions, includes a 4 to 7 per cent increase in salaries (back-dated for 496 days); the 10.4 per cent pay adjustment for all State servants (back-dated to November, 1979); and the difference'in the 4,5 per cent general wage adjustment due on th'eir in-' creased salaries.

The P.P.T.A. president (Mr David Baird) said it was impossible to speak of an "average” teacher.

The association based its calculations on teachers at the top of the basic scale, because they had usually been in the service for about seven years, which seerned to be the Average stay. Teachers at the top (for example, headmasters) will get a smaller percentage in* crease than those nearer the bottom. The April 30 pay-out will cost the Government an estimated $42 million. Mr Baird did not think the pay increase would do much to boost teacher recruitment or retention. “It is so much just a catch-ing-up that I can’t see that it will hold anyone,” he said. “It may help improve :• recruitment, but that is difficult to assess. We would like recruits to have a better reason for coming in to the ■service than just better salaries.”