Staff: Pay Parity

To see the MOE Guide to Pay Parity for Teachers and Service Providers, please see here.

What is Pay Parity?

The Early Childhood Education Pay Parity Scheme is about closing the pay gap between certificated teachers working in education and care based services with their teacher colleagues working in kindergartens.

To achieve this, higher funding rates are available to education and care and hospital-based services who pay all employed certificated teachers at least the salary amounts described in the ECE Funding Handbook.

Teachers Covered 

To be considered a certificated teacher for funding purposes, the teacher must hold a current practising certificate issued by the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. They must also have:

• a NZ early childhood or primary teaching qualification, or
• an overseas qualification assessed by NZQA as being comparable to a NZ early childhood or primary teaching qualification or
• an ECE or primary endorsement from the Teaching Council when obtaining your certification through the discretionary pathway.

Certificated teachers working in home-based services, Playcentres or whanau-led kōhanga reo are not covered.

Teacher Pay Rate

What step a teacher enters the pay scale on depends on the combination of three factors:

• their highest qualification (search for the level of qualifications on the NZQA website(external link)),
• their service history, and
• any previous relevant work experience.

Requirements for these three factors are set out in the Funding Handbook, Chapter 3-B-2(external link). To find out more about Pay Parity, please see this resource from the Ministry of Education.

Turn On Pay Parity & Notifications

Please note: The ability to turn on Pay Parity is limited to administrators with full HR access in Discover.

Opting in to pay parity will show additional fields on Staff Profiles to allow administrators to track hours worked to ensure their staff are on the right pay step. Discover will show notifications on the Dashboard when staff members are getting close to going up the next step to ensure your funding is maximised.

To turn on Pay Parity and the ability to receive notifications in Discover:

1. Navigate to Staff tab
2. Once landing on the Staff List, select Staff Settings tab
3. Under the heading 'Opt in to Pay Parity Tracking, select the notification window band from the following options:

• 40 hours
• 80 hours
• 160 hours

4. Select save

The centre has now opted in to Pay Parity, which will show additional fields on Staff Profiles. These new fields will allows administrators to track hours worked to ensure staff are on the right pay step.

Discover will also show you notifications on the Dashboard under Staff Alerts when staff members are getting close to going up to the next step to ensure your funding is maintained. 

Staff Payroll Tab

In order to view Pay Parity, Discover has further developed the Payroll tab within the Staff Profile to now house an additional Pay Parity session. Administrators will be able to establish and review this information by navigating as follows:

1. Navigate to the Staff tab
2. From within the Staff list tab, select Staff Member and enter their profile
3. Navigate to the Payroll tab

Under this menu item, pay parity will be visible to full time staff with qualifications or considered fully certified teachers.

Pay Parity Tracking

In order to view this section of the Staff Profile, the following conditions must be met when logging into Discover:

• User must be a Centre Admin
• User must have full HR access
• Pay Parity must be turned on via Staff Settings
• Teacher must be qualified

To log Pay Parity for a Staff Member:

1. Navigate to Staff > select the Staff profile.
2. Click the Payroll tab.
3. Underneath 'Pay Parity Tracking', click 'Add'.
4. Select the current pay parity step.
5. Type in any previously contributing hours (Optional, only enter if applicable. Previous hours must be in a whole number format).*
6. Select the Active From date (the date tracking will commence from Discover's roster).

*Any previously contributing hours entered here must be prior to the 'Active From' date. As of the Active From date, Discover will pull data from the Roster. Overlapping the hours counted and the date tracking commences will result in additional hours being logged that were not meant to contribute.

Once created, administrators will be able to use this area to track hours in relation to what pay parity step they are on and view historical data. 

Once 2080 hours have been tracked and after a notification has appeared on the Discover Dashboard, a new step with an updated start date and an updated Hourly Rate will need to be added. Any changes made will captured overnight in the system and visible the next day upon login.

Any paid roster activities will contribute to currently contributing hours on the pay parity tab.

Hourly Pay Rate 

Each time administrators move a teacher up a Pay Parity step, they will need to update the staff members hourly pay rate if it has been effected. 

1. Navigate to the Payroll tab within the staff member profile
2. Under Pay rate, select Add
3. Input the Hourly rate effective from, Hourly rate, Hourly rate overtime
4. Save
   

Roster Activities 

The hours calculated under the Pay Parity tracking feed directly from the Staff Roster in Discover. When creating new roster activities in Staff Roster, administrators will see a blue info panel indicating whether the activity will contribute to Pay Parity tracking if the pay parity notification has been switched on for the centre. 

This panel can be viewed when creating new roster activities under Centre Settings > Roster.

Pay Parity Learning Library

FAQs

Can steps be skipped?

Opting in to Pay Parity means that your service is attesting to pay the teacher in line with their relevant qualification and experience to receive funding from the government to bring ECE teachers salaries more in line with Kindergarten teachers salaries.

Discover's Pay Parity feature is a calculator, not a compliance tool. Discover uses the information entered on the system and relies on users knowing what step the staff member should currently be at and where they working towards. 

We recommend centres have the evidence of work history if audited when attesting that someone's salary is on a different step or has jumped/skipped steps.

Can unqualified educators hours be tracked under Pay Parity as their hours count toward their first step once qualified?

Yes you can use this tool to track unqualified teachers hours towards their first step and once attained, make changes in the system to mark them as qualified and track hours to Step 2. 

Can the Pay Rate be backdated?

Pay Rate cannot be backdated as this information is connected to your payroll records and effects past history and calculations. You must use a current date to avoid issues with historical data. 

The hours aren't being calculated.

If you are entering in hours after your centre's closing hours, it can take up to 48 hours for the hours to begin tracking. If you still cannot see hours tracked after this period has passed, please get in contact with our Support Team for assistance. 

How often do the Pay Parity Contributing hours update?

Providing your roster data has been entered, the hours are calculated daily - overnight.