As both primary and secondary teachers continue with their strike campaigns, let’s have a look at the background to their claims
Some decades ago, teacher salaries were roughly equivalent to those of backbench members of parliament. Since then the gap has increased, nearly doubled in fact. While I don’t begrudge MPs their pay, after all it’s a tough gig and there’s no way I’d want to do it, the salary gap does show how teacher pay has stagnated since then.
This linked article does some further analysis that demonstrates this stagnation.
Teacher salaries have plummeted relative to minimum and median wages
“EXCLUSIVE: Teachers used to be paid two to three times more than minimum wage workers, finds maths researcher Leighton Watson.”
Is that so? I wonder what the situation is now?
“In 1999, salaries for secondary school teachers ranged from $33,000 for a trained teacher with a three-year degree or equivalent, up to $48,600 at the top of the base salary scale. Since then, salaries have increased by approximately 200% to $64,083 and $103,086.
During this same time, however, the minimum wage has increased from $7 per hour to $22.7 per hour, which is an increase of over 300%. This means that teaching salaries have plummeted relative to the minimum wage. In 1999, a classroom teacher made between 2.27 times and 3.34 times the minimum wage. In 2025, this has decreased to 1.36 times to 2.18 times the minimum wage.”
Case made.
It’s clear that governments led by either Labour or National have not ensured teacher pay has increased sufficiently, although to be fair my recollection is that pay increases under Labour led governments were somewhat more generous than under National led governments. However the same applies to increases in the minimum wage which probably affects the comparison to teacher salaries.
Undoubtedly, given the number of teachers in the country, teacher salaries are a major part of any government’s expenditure and so awarding fair salary increases would impact on annual budgets, especially when governments give so much income away in the form of tax cuts to the wealthy. Restricting teacher pay is an easy way to limit this impact.
Let’s look at another feature:
“Factoring in the cost of training at a university, it takes teachers over a decade since starting study to make more than a minimum wage worker over the same period. Teaching qualifications typically take three-years to complete, during which trainee teachers are paying university fees of around $6700 each year, and doing unpaid placements for eight weeks each year.”
And there’s another comparison:
“Teaching salaries have also dropped relative to the median wage. This is defined as the wage at which 50 percent of the country’s population make more, and 50 percent make less income. In 1999, secondary teachers made between 1.22 times the median wage at the bottom of the trained teacher salary scale, and 1.80 times median wage at the top of the scale. This has dropped to 0.92 times to 1.48 times in 2024.
If teaching salaries had remained the same relative to minimum wage, then teachers would be paid between $107,014 and $157,603 – an increase between $42,931 and $54,517 compared to current salaries. To keep up with average wage inflation since 1999, salaries would need to increase by around $22,000 to $85,558 for the base of the salary scale and $126,003 at the top of the scale. ”
It is demonstrably clear that teachers have been shortchanged by successive governments for decades.
On top of this, as I wrote in an earlier article, the teaching job has become so much harder – this was obvious during my teaching career and I’ve been told that things have gotten worse over the last decade.
This is partly due to the fact that governments, particularly those on the right, have used parental concerns about their children’s education as a means of attracting votes. This has resulted in a seemingly never ending merry go round of changing education policies and ever increasing expectations on teachers.
Is there any wonder teachers have had enough and have been forced to go on strike?
Our kids have been shortchanged by declining educational achievement, although the can sing in Maori very well and celebrate rainbow week.
Performance pay seems a fair concept fit any teachers actually getting better results.
Extra money can come from a full clean out of the education department.
Keepcalmcarryon, it is clear that your racist English education background does not fit into normal N.Z. society.
Perhaps a full cleanout of immigrant teachers from the UK will bring in extra money.
Born here old chap but nice bit of anti English racism you are displaying there.
Maybe you should whakapapa the hell up?
Oh you are triggered so easily, I love it when you can dish it but never take it ole son. You may reflect next time in your comment however I doubt whether you have the mental capacity given the racist undertones to your posts. Perhaps learn a pepeha or a karakia and come back to me for more Maori language lessons as your understanding of the Maori language is simply appalling. Clearly not born here otherwise you’d know.
If I was a conservative racist I’d be saying “English is not a race.” But I’m not. So I won’t.
Performance pay absolutely not. How is that going to be judged, complete madness.
The problem with performance pay is who teaches the difficult students? Motivated & well-resourced students can be a lot of fun, and you can teach them plenty. Students with behavioral problems, not so much. If you go down that road it rapidly becomes Devil take the hindmost.
As a society, generating a large fraction of failures causes a multitude of very expensive problems. Half of them become Treasury Economists – an absolute blight on society, and no use for anything except fertilizer.
More pay for teachers who handle the neurodiverse.
Less for those who complain about “Trump boys’ and are left wing indoctrinators.
Kids (boys) in my own children’s class had a 20 minute angry rant from their (female) teacher about how terrible Trump is after some kid mentioned him in passing in a discussion. She was off tap enough that we got told about it. Teacher is American.
Some of the basic spelling from teachers is also appalling, and these people are supposedly teaching kids to write. Less dollars if they aren’t up to standard, or get them out of the profession if they can’t get to standard.
Well you know Trump falls so far short of every democratic and constitutional ideal he’s worthy of the odd rant. I found myself having to explain to one of my students in Saudi that Hitler, for all his refreshingly direct approach to bureaucratic obstructionism would have killed him for his skin color, and then a second time for his religion.
Performance pay is a no brainer – ie one of those oversimplistic solutions that is sadly less effective than might be supposed.
“Intriguingly, performance outcomes are less impacted by PRP than employee-related outcomes like work motivation and job satisfaction, implying that PRP might carry some motivational benefits while its benefits for better performance outcomes are questionable.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25741292.2023.2205756#abstract
Not sure about the children, that’s an assumption on your behalf but your grammar is appalling…
” although the can sing in Maori very well and celebrate rainbow week.”
the can?
You are starting on the wrong foot with the idea that you “don’t begrudge MPs their pay…” when it seems that most of them are paid just for turning up (evidently some of them are unreliable at that also) while making no useful contribution to making life better for all in NZ. I can appreciate that having any sort of performance pay for teachers would be difficult because of the quality of the students & their parents, their financial circumstances, etc, and it’s possible that teachers in the most difficult situations with seemingly limited success with their students are actually doing the best job. The same dynamic exists across almost all occupations, with those who think their contribution is just turning up at work expecting to be paid the same as those who are highly productive. While the comparison between teacher salaries and the median and minimum wage is fair it would help to see the income bands along with the number of people in each as it could be that a limited number of highly paid people are making the median wage appear higher than it is for a majority of the people. My thoughts are that to earn a high income you need to be in a regulated situation or have special skills that enable you to be a price setter instead of a price taker. People having their own business also have a risk involved, so they need some sort of premium to allow for that. Another result of wanting people to be well paid is that things will cost more. Society is very negative about things costing more so it will always be difficult to negotiate in good faith when the government is responsible for setting most teachers’ salaries.
I do begrudge MPs their salary. If you are a back bencher of either Labour or National, you sit there, try not make major cock ups and you are on a trip to becoming a minister, just don’t open your mouth and disagree with anything your master and ministers say. None of them could be a teacher in any of our poorest schools.
Yes, MICHAL but they sit there and nod their heads, and they are allowed to ask patsy questions in question time and sometimes they stand behind their leaders when being interviewed by media and nod in support, that’s hard work (not)
Precisely. I defy any one of them to survive a day in some classrooms.
Even without problems and bad behaviour, the energy and patience required is immense.
No chance them surviving until lunchtime given Simeon Brown has no qualities to look after children and Willis, Upston etc private schooled their own.
Pretty sure that about 10% of MPs do 90% of the work. I think most workplaces share the work out a bit more evenly.
Dont worry all teachers will be replaced by an auto cue under this government .As the learning is dumbed down and no thinking is to be needed there will be no need for teacher to be present .The first kid into the class room can turn on the big screen and the kids can sit there all day repeating the same shit .
Leaving the comparison to minimum wage aside, as I would have no particular problem with wage compression if it was happening anywhere except the bottom end- with wage inflation, $33,000-$48,600 in 1999 is equivalent to $83,000-$122,000 today.
Yeah you are right, in my job the minimum wage has increased more than my salary has. However my salary is still comparable to people who work in other industries or professions.
Indeed- problem is however that if that fat cats hadn’t been creaming it, we could have seen similar percentage increases in our wages to those for minimum wage employees (who still often barely make enough to live on supermarket pasta with the odd jar of pasta sauce). In the case of teachers, from the Reserve Bank wake inflation calculators, they’re about $20k behind what they should be all across the experience band.
I believe teacher quality is excellent. What diminishes educational effectiveness are the constantly changing demands, the wide range of behaviours from students and parents, and the lack of support for students with additional needs. Among children with neurodiversities, some have also been affected by foetal alcohol or methamphetamine exposure, adding further challenges for teachers. Unfortunately, there are very few educational psychologists, speech-language therapists, and other specialists available to provide the necessary support.
Yes you are on the button Emma.
Thank-you Emma. You are someone who knows the reality.
I differ, I’ve got kids at school and been through the school and university system in this country myself a few years back.
There are good teachers but the current standard is a lot poorer than it was.
Let me guess , you are a teacher marking your own homework?
Most disagree with you keepcalm.
Politicians quality has plummeted over the years to.
“In 2025, this has decreased to 1.36 times to 2.18 times the minimum wage.”
A better question to ask is if all salaries have reduced in comparison to the minimum wage and whether between private vs public who has reduced the most relative? The results might shock a lot on here.
NZ (I believe) has the highest minimum wage RELATIVE to the average wage
Low wage economy under National Frank, it may shock you, but they openly promote it.
If NZ has the highest minimum wage RELATIVE to the average wage as you say it’s because of Labour and the unions.
Pretty much everyone’s wages have decreased in real terms in the last 40 years. This is by design as part of neoliberalism.
Wages are generally tied in to inflation, and since the 1980s and 90s inflation has been systemically understated. In fact if it were measure the same way as 1980, inflation would be at least double what it is now.
So in real terms, unless you are in a chosen profession, a politician or a public servant, you are going backwards in real terms.
This is widely reported on several channels and should be the sort of stuff teachers are teaching kids in school. Never has politics had so much influence on your future success. The system is designed to favour the wealthy and demonise the poor. Every single time.
Correct rangi. National promotes a low wage economy. Any debate on teachers, nurses, doctors, women, men and children’s wages and salaries ends the debate on acceptable income in Nationals eyes.
It should also be remembered that the fraction of NZers on the minimum wage has grown significantly over that period – as mass low wage migration suppressed wage growth in spite of exploding living costs.
We need to rebuild NZ from the bottom up .Clearly the top down plan is just a myth ,so start at the bottom ,house ,feed house and employ all which will fix poverty and it will be all up hill from there to the great little country we should be .Even no boats has cottoned on that the future is in the way Maori do business which takes everyone along with it .
Don’t compare it to the under regulated minimum wage, compare it to real assets because these define the cost of living, i.e. rent, mortgages and the things produced from real assets (food, cars, etc). The NZD has been debased by more than a factor of 10 by 1999.
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