3% pay rise for teachers

A 3% wage increase will be paid to more than 30,000 Western Australian public school teachers, effective from 1 September 2022.

The raise will include back pay, under the new School Education Act (Teachers and Administrators) General Agreement 2021, with eligible staff receiving pay dated from 6 December 2021.

Education and Training Minister Sue Ellery and Industrial Relations Minister Bill Johnston also announced that teachers are set to receive their one-off $2500 cost-of-living payment, which was announced last month as part of changes to the WA public sector wages policy, early in Term 4. Part-time and casual employees will receive a pro-rata cost-of-living payment.

“Teachers will be the first to receive the sector-wide cost-of-living payment, which is part of the latest changes to WA's public sector wages policy,” said Industrial Relations Minister Bill Johnston.

On top of the wage increase and cost-of-living payment, the new agreement includes additional measures to address wellbeing and workload matters. The new initiatives include:

• implementation of a modern, flexible personal leave entitlement for school year 2023;
• additional flexibility and consideration for the provision of time off based on additional hours worked;
• one existing school development day dedicated to curriculum support;
• improvements to support graduate and regional teachers, principals and deputy principals, including compensatory leave for principals;
• reducing administrative red tape, including performance management and improvements to staff transfer arrangements.
   

These additional measures will support those already in place to attract and retain teachers.

“Teachers have an important role in educating and helping to shape the futures of young Western Australians, so we must continue to attract inspiring teachers to the profession and keep them in our classrooms,” said Education and Training Minister Sue Ellery.

“The recently registered agreement is a positive outcome for teachers and the public education system more broadly.

“It includes a range of measures to address compliance load, wellbeing and workload issues, and eligible staff can look forward to receiving the agreed wage increase and back pay from [today].

“In addition to these commitments, work continues to be done to attract and retain teachers, including developing a National Teacher Workforce Action Plan with Education Ministers from around the country.”

Image credit: iStock.com/erdikocak