Secondary school teacher salary 1980-2024

 *Most teachers are paid at the top of the scale rate. This is the 'standard' rate for salary comparison and is the rate for the basic teaching job.

(TBS is top of basic scale)

In 1980, under the Muldoon Government, the top of scale salary for a secondary teacher was 1.73 times higher than the average wage. In 1985 this rose to 1.93 times the average wage under the Lange Government.

During the 1990s, a succession of national governments (in which English was a member) cut secondary teacher numbers (1991/2 and 1994/5) and allowed the secondary teacher salary rate to fall to a low of 1.32 times the average wage, creating the damaging teacher shortage in the mid-90's.

National were forced into a temporary salary boost in 1996, lifting the TBS to 1.43 times the average wage, still significantly below the comparative rate in the Muldoon years. From then they allowed the relative rate to steadily fall again.

When Labour took control of the front benches in 1999 it was faced with ongoing and systemic teacher supply problems. A pitiful pay offer in 2001 completely misread the teacher supply situation and led to widespread industrial action when schools found themselves unable to attract or retain staff at that pay rate.  An independent panel chaired by Dame Margaret Bazely was convened to look at the evidence provided by both sides in the dispute and recommended a staged 13% increase in the rate.

The subsequent Ministerial Taskforce on Secondary Teacher Pay and Remuneration (2003) - also chaired by Dame Margaret - recognised the teacher supply problems continued and recommended (amongst other things in a 10 year plan to improve the attractiveness of teaching as a profession) that an objective salary mechanism should be applied to prevent teacher salaries from again falling behind and limiting the need to take industrial action to keep salaries current. A steady increase in rates to maintain relativity with other wage and salaries was seen as preferable to the boom-bust sequence of low or no increases leading to critical teacher shortages, responded to too late by a one-off boost to salaries and then back to a phase of negligence.

By 2004 stage salaries were only 1.47 times the average wage, significantly below the relative wage rate that the Bolger government inherited.

Since 2003 salaries have been edging back towards levels needed to recruit and retain adequate numbers of qualified secondary teachers. The TBS is about 1.57 times the average wage with the 2009 increase. It would require an increase of 10% immediately to bring the normal teacher salary back to the relative level Muldoon left it at.

If we put relative wage rates to one side and look at the value of the top of the normal teacher salary over time, the inflation rate from December 1985 to December 2009 is 121%, while the normal pay rate increased by 102%. It would have required an 8.8% increase in the current top of scale rate in December 2009 just to restore its value relative to the pay teachers were receiving in 1985.