School teachers will be offered a $4000 cash incentive in a bid to encourage more educators to be accredited as lead or highly accomplished teachers.
The government has set a target of lifting the number of HALT teachers to 2500 in the next two years,but a complex and burdensome application process has deterred teachers from signing up for the roles,which allow them to be mentors and coaches for other educators.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said public school teachers accredited as lead teachers would receive a one-off $4000 cash payment in addition to a salary of up to $120,000. Payments will start from mid-year.
“We know the quality of teachers across NSW is world class,” Mitchell said. “We want to make it as easy as possible for our best teachers to be recognised and remunerated for their impact.”
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Craig Petersen,head of the Secondary Principals Council,said that while he welcomed incentives to retain teachers in public schools,the process to achieve HALT status was still onerous.
“We also remain concerned about the ability of private schools to offer significantly higher salaries to teachers,” he said,adding that teachers could increase their salary by $10,000 to up to $50,000 by switching to work in an independent school.
He said state schools were struggling to attract enough teachers,and as a result some class sizes had increased.