Therapists who work with students have today signed off an equity settlement with the Ministry of Education, accepting pay rises of up to 34%.
An investigation by the New Zealand Educational Institute and Ministry of Education found the sector has suffered from gender-based pay discrimination because the majority of the workforce were women. The claim affected 800 workers.
Occupational therapist Jayshree Bhana worked at a specialist school with students with higher learning needs and said the settlement felt like "major recognition."
"Because it's mainly women, they've had to do multiple jobs — most of our therapists that you chat to are doing second jobs," she said.
She said pay rises would "free up their time to be able to do things with their family and spend time where it matters the most so it's a signficant win".
Bhana said their work supported students to access the curriculum so they could learn.
"We work closely with our teachers, teaching teams and our whānau and it's looking at what sort of programmes we can put in place to best support the learning needs... what does independence look like for the students.
Student therapists were told to 'marry well'
"A lot of what we're looking at is their sensory regulation around wellbeing because that impacts their learning and behaviour in the classroom... if you've got a regulated student, you're getting better learning outcomes."
Tauranga speech language therapist Conor Fraser reflected today on lecturers joking during her studies that their building was next to the engineering building. That was because therapists needed to "marry well" since people in their profession were there for the love of the work, not for the money.
Fraser said she would need to get in touch with her former lecturers to tell them to stop saying that, with equitable pay rates soon to come.
Physiotherapist Sara Tipper works with schools in the western Bay of Plenty area and hoped the settlement would help attract more therapists to work for the Ministry of Education.
"Because of the nature of the work, it's really rewarding — challenging — but I love my job.
"It is hard to get people over the initial role definition and the way that it works. You're not a hands-on therapist in the way that we traditionally are in health roles, so it's quite different. It takes a couple of years to get your head around that," she said.
Tipper said she had felt close to burn-out at times and boundaries needed to be put in place to maintain a work-life balance.
"Knowing that the Ministry of Education has a bit more knowledge about what our work actually is, is really good and that this is recognising the value of our work makes a difference."
'Value to whānau, and the wider community'
Ministry of Education education workforce leader Anna Welanyk said the settlement acknowledged the important work therapists did in supporting children and young people.
"The settlement acknowledges both the value of the skills and experience therapists bring to their work, as well as the positive impact their work has on students, whānau, and the wider community,' she stated.
The settlement was the seventh for the education sector since 2018.
The new pay rates are effective from May 25 2023, with different increases for staff under different collective agreements.
Staff who worked in specialist schools covered by the Kaiārahi i te Reo and Therapists' Collective Agreement would receive pay rises ranging from around 24% to 34%.
Speech therapists covered by the Primary Teachers' Collective Agreement would receive increases ranging from 10.23% to nearly 30%.
For other staff covered by the Field Staff Collective Agreement, the minimum entry salary would rise from $67,928 to $72,928. The maximum salary increase was minimal, from $109,000 to $109,166. NZEI said in a statement that this group's pay rates were corrected largely through collective agreement negotiations last year.
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