The IEU has launched a campaign calling for a substantial pay rise for teachers and educators in community-based preschools in NSW.
On Friday 5 April a big group of passionate preschool teachers from across NSW gathered at the IEU’s Sydney office to launch the Unite for Change campaign and prepare for their part in it.
Many teachers at the forum said that without urgent action they feared for the future of community preschools.
“We don’t have enough students coming through the system who want to work in community preschools,” said Tash Smith, a teacher at East Lindfield Community Preschool. “Once my generation finishes up, who will replace us?”
Many graduate teachers opt to teach in schools or preschools that are attached to public schools where they are paid the same as school teachers.
This pay inequity has led to a staffing crisis that is threatening early childhood education.
Beginning preschool teachers are paid just $67,513 a year under the applicable modern award, while their colleagues in schools are paid $85,000 a year.
For experienced preschool teachers under the modern award, the top rate is $86,876 per year. In comparison, a teacher with the same level of experience working in a NSW government school is currently paid $122,100 a year.
Many preschools, one agreement
Community-based, not-for-profit preschools are run by voluntary parent committees of mums and dads. Preschools provide high-quality early childhood education to many children throughout NSW, but they need help to address the workforce crisis that is threatening early childhood education.
“For too long, the work of preschool teachers has been undervalued,” IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews said.
“It’s time for a fair deal for preschools. Respect the profession, pay teachers and educators properly and invest in the future.”
The IEU is using industrial relations reforms passed by the federal Labor government in 2022. The ‘supported bargaining’ stream is designed to assist employers and employees who haven’t been able to bargain successfully at the individual enterprise level to bargain as a group.
“It provides an opportunity for us to bargain for a multi-employer enterprise agreement,” IEUA Assistant Secretary Amanda Hioe said.
Victoria’s ‘gold standard’
The forum welcomed keynote speaker Cara Nightingale, the Australian Education Union’s Vice President, Early Childhood.
Nightingale said the pay and conditions of early childhood teachers in Victoria are equivalent to school teachers under the hard-won Victorian Early Childhood Teachers and Educators Agreement 2020 (see page 5).
Nightingale said the Victorian agreement is considered to be “the gold standard we need to get the rest of the early childhood education and care workforce up to”.
The Victorian model provides a reason for optimism. “If there’s a model in Victoria that works, why not get that enterprise agreement here?” Lawson Community Preschool teacher Meg Lockley asked.
