Some early childhood teachers say the process for getting the right pay rate if they switch to school teaching is a nightmare that leaves them despairing and in tears.
They say the documentation required by Education Payroll Ltd — the school payroll company — to prove their early childhood teaching experience and place them on the correct step of the teacher pay scale is sometimes unreasonable and at times illogical.
Some say they are being paid $40,000 less than they should given their experience.
Some told RNZ the difficulties with Ed Pay was so bad they gave up and returned to early learning.
Ed Pay told RNZ its average time for dealing with pay assessments was seven days, down from 14 days in the 2023-24 year.
It said it did not record whether salary assessment applications included prior early childhood teaching experience and therefore could not calculate how many salary assessments it received from early childhood teachers each year and how many were granted, refused or discontinued due to lack of evidence.
But teachers told RNZ they endured months of wrangling, particularly if their work history was divided among multiple employers or included early childhood services that had closed or changed hands.
Teacher Susan Bates said Ed Pay insisted on statements of service from previous employers, including the total hours worked during the period of employment, using papers with company letterheads and with all documents witnessed by a Justice of the Peace (JP).
“The problem we have as early childhood teachers is a lot of centres have gone out of business,” she said.
“It’s a real administrative nightmare. I know some managers have felt put under a great deal of pressure to come up with these statements of service for staff they don’t even know… Previous owners can’t use letterheads anymore because they’re not the owners anymore, so there’s a real difficulty in getting the statements of service.”
Bates said IRD records and payslips should be enough to prove employment and hours worked, but Ed Pay would not accept that.
“This is crazy to me,” she said.
Bates said she lodged her salary assessment in the middle of last year, but was yet to be assigned the right step.
“I’m still on step one. Ten years of early childhood teaching and three years in primary and I cannot get this pay stuff resolved,” she said.
She said 40 other teachers contacted her to report similar problems after she posted on social media about her experience.
“They’re telling me this is the most stressful period in their whole lives and they’re telling me they’ve had many, many nights of crying about it,” Bates said.
“So now we’ve got a situation where experienced teachers have got a choice of working in primary at up to $40,000 less in a pay drop or just leaving the sector and many are just leaving the sector,” she said.
Bates said some were lucky enough to have school principals who supported their attempts to get the right pay rate, but those who were relief teaching— stepping in to cover for absent teachers — often did not receive that support.
‘I just gave up’
A teacher told RNZ they gave up on their pay assessment because it became too stressful.
She asked not to be named because a school she sometimes worked at had been part of the problem.
The teacher said she stopped early childhood teaching about two-and-a-half years ago to try relieving in primary schools.
After about 10 months she realised she was being paid at the rate of a teacher aide rather than as a qualified teacher and started the salary assessment process with Ed Pay.
She said her situation was complicated because some of her 20 years of early childhood work involved relieving and the to-ing and fro-ing with Ed Pay created a lot of tension with administration staff at the school she was relieving at.
The teacher said her pay rate was increased to the rate for a newly-qualified, registered teacher and she was back-paid, but half-way through last year she gave up on trying to get the salary step her experience warranted.
“It got to the point I just gave up… I just cancelled it,” she said.
“Who knows if I could be on a lot more.”
The teacher said one of the biggest problems with her application was that her communication with Ed Pay had to be via the school at which she was relieving.
She said that made if more difficult to explain her situation to Ed Pay staff and it eventually irritated and alienated the school staff who had to act on her behalf.
Teacher statements provided to RNZ included one from a teacher who said Ed Pay refused to recognised her 10 years as a centre manager as full-time teaching.
“I was going to walk away altogether — I didn’t have the fight in me and I wasn’t going to work for less than I deserved. I’d already given up on ECE and moving to primary was sort of a last chance saloon thing,” she wrote.
The teacher said Ed Pay changed its mind only after she contested its decision with the support or her principal and a letter copied to government ministers.
Another teacher said her salary assessment was initially rejected because some of the statements of service from previous employers were not on letterheads or were not written correctly.
The teacher said she worked hard to get all the evidence together, but much of it was still rejected and Ed Pay put her on step 6 of the teacher pay scale rather than step 10.
“All the running around stressing and being paid less was a kick in the guts. It was so stressful and then not even being put on the right pay step after giving them everything they had asked for was heart breaking,” she wrote.
“The pay assessment is a joke and it’s causing unnecessary stress to teachers.”
Education Payroll said in a statement it knew in some cases it was difficult to get a statement of service from a former employer.
“When it isn’t possible to get a statement of service, teachers need to provide at least two types of other supporting documents that evidence their teaching experience,” it said.
“We require this documentation to confirm a teacher’s previous job start and end dates, whether their work was full-time or part-time, and if they worked part-time how many hours they worked. The type of supporting documentation we need differs for each applicant and is considered on a case-by-case basis.”
Education Payroll said teachers could contact it directly about their application via email or phone but the school employing them had to be involved when the application was emailed to Education Payroll.
“This is because the principal needs to verify the application by looking at the physical versions of any supporting documentation before it is emailed to us,” it said.
It said it could not use a record of earnings from Inland Revenue because the record did not document the exact hours someone worked and the earnings could represent just salary, or salary and allowances, or other payments like a parental grant.
“When supporting evidence isn’t included with the application form, we ask the teacher to provide this documentation so that we can complete their assessment. In some cases, especially for applicants coming from overseas there can be a delay while they wait for previous employers to provide the necessary documentation,” it said.
rnz.co.nz
