ACE welcomes teacher pay announcement

News Release
Monday 28 November, 2011

The Australian College of Educators today welcomed the announcement of a staged implementation of the reward payment scheme linked to the first national Professional Standards for teachers.

Under the Reward and Payments for Great Teachers initiative announced on Friday by Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett, teachers accredited to the highest level of the Standards will be rewarded with $7500 for Highly Accomplished teachers and $10,000 for teachers who achieve the Lead Teacher level.

ACE National President and Chair, Ms Lyndsay Connors, said the new scheme was a vast improvement on the Government's previous policy of awarding one-off bonuses to a pre-determined proportion of classroom teachers, up to around one in every ten.

 "As much as we need to see greater public investment in education, we don't want to see money spent inappropriately", Ms Connors said. 

"We need a mature career and pay structure that captures the complexities and varieties of a teacher's career path. This would not have been achieved under the previous unworkable bonus payments model.

"Minister Garrett should be congratulated for adopting a much improved policy, in line with advice from the profession.

"The approach now being taken by Minister Garrett is in line with international evidence that one-off bonus schemes do not work; and with the advice in the Productivity Commission's recent draft research report on the schools workforce that the bonus scheme for teachers should be deferred.

"There is widespread agreement among educators that what is needed are national salary and career structures aligned to agreed national teaching standards that can attract and retain teachers and drive teacher quality," Ms Connors said.

The new scheme is also in line with the approach outlined in a report for the Business Council of Australia by Professor Stephen Dinham, Dr Lawrence Ingvarson and Dr Elizabeth Kleinhenz in 2008.  

Professor Dinham, Director of Learning and Teaching with the University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education, will become President-elect of ACE in January 2012. 

ENDS

Media enquiries:

Louise Reynolds, ACE national office, Tel: 03 9035 5002 or 0431 001 773