Guidance into term 1 2024
Changes arising from the Collective Agreement settlements in Term 1
From 28 January 2024:
1. Everyone will move to the new sick leave entitlement See https://www.ppta.org.nz/collective-agreements/secondary-teachers-collective-agreement-stca/appendix-f-sick-leave-translation/
No-one will start the year with fewer than 10 days and no-one will have fewer sick days under the new entitlement than they would have had under the previous entitlement.
2. No sick leave will be deducted for weekends when schools are open for instruction.
This is applying retrospectively from 3 July 2022. Anyone who had sick days deducted over weekends from that date will have those days added back to their sick leave balance.
3. Anyone providing Pacific bilingual immersion teaching at levels 1 and 2 in approved classes/programmes will be eligible to receive the new allowance (PBITA).
4. The maximum salary cap for short-term relief teachers increases from Step 5 to Step 6.
5. Teachers without additional payments should be allocated duties that can be completed in 1816 hours over the year and may ask for a review if their school-related duties cannot be completed in those hours. Teachers with additional payments should have agreement in writing on the additional hours (if any) and/or days of attendance on site covered by that additional payment.
6. Payment and time allowances for those in Community Liaison roles will begin.
7. The education payroll will continue to correct individual lump sum underpayments.
Teaching Council Fees and reimbursements when moving from provisional to full certification
No fee payment
Members are reminded that you do not need to make a payment to submit your provisional to full certification request.
The Teaching Council changed their system, Hapori Matatū, so that eligible teachers are no longer required to pay for the certification.
When you get to their website to move from provisional to full certification, there are two steps to bypass payment.
1. If you are eligible for the free certification, tick that box on the eligibility screen.
2. On a later screen tick the attestation box to agree to pay the fee and levy if you are ineligible.
Ticking both boxes means you don’t have to make a payment.
Reimbursement of payment
The Ministry has paid reimbursements up to mid-January. At that point, the volume of payment applications led to the temporary suspension of reimbursements while a new system for payment was introduced.
The Ministry will now simply notify each teacher when their payment has been through payroll, rather than asking for personal banking information. The first batch of payments under this new process go through on 5 March.
Members are reminded that you do not need to pay the fees to the Teaching Council, but if you do the Ministry continues to receive lists from the Teaching Council and those new to the queue will be reimbursed as part of the fortnightly pay cycles.
If you paid your certification fee after the collectives were ratified then you will be automatically reimbursed.
While the process is automatic the Ministry cannot make a payment until they get confirmation from the Teaching Council that the certification is complete. Email or calling the Ministry will not speed up this process.