Years of striking and negotiating has come to a head for NSW teachers, who will become the highest paid teachers in Australia after shaking hands with the NSW Government on a new agreement. 

Commencing next term, the starting salary for a NSW teacher will increase by almost $10 thousand to $85,000, with the salary for a top-scale teacher increasing from $113,042 to $122,100. 

The new agreement is expected to help tackle the statewide teacher shortage, something that teachers in the union have attributed to undervalued salaries and unachievable workloads. 

NSW Teachers Federation Dubbo representative Tim Danaher said that the new agreement should address both. 

“There’s certainly been some steps on the department and the governments side to address that, things like additional time for teachers and getting rid of policies and programs that is not enhancing their teaching,” Mr Danaher said. 

While the new term will only see a change to pay, under the agreement measures to assist with the workload will be incorporated into the new award

Despite recognising that the new award is a win for attracting teachers into the industry, there are concerns that it will have less impact on staffing regional schools. 

“We have schools that have every incentive that you could possibly have…and yet we still have open vacancies in those schools,” Mr Danaher said. 

“All the research points to workload, salaries, and those other things out west that further impact on our ability to attract and retain teachers. It just definitely needs massive revision and massive investment,” he said.  

School counsellors will also be paid according to a new salary scale that recognises their dual qualification and acute staff shortages in their discipline. 

While the pay increases will be automatic for teachers within the public school system and Catholic school teachers, the Independeny Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch is hopeful that the benefits will flow on for independent teachers.. 

“The 2022 joint work stoppage between the NSWTF and the IEUA NSW/ACT, and ongoing member action since, have culminated in this win. All NSW/ACT teachers benefit from this nation leading agreement,” IEUA NSW?ACT Branch Secretary Mark Northam said. 

The IEUA has reported that despite reaching out to the Association of Independent Schools (AIS) for an urgent meeting to discuss new salary benchmarks for independent teachers, however, the AIS has declined to meet.