Key industry’s employees offered cash bonus under new plan

A key industry is offering a massive bonus and promising higher pay rates for employees who complete extra training.

Teachers are being offered $4000 bonuses with the promise of higher wages under a state government plan to entice educators into expert teaching roles.

On Monday, the NSW government announced new cash incentives for teachers completing Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation.

The accreditation program began more than a decade ago, but so far only 310 teachers have completed the training.

State Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the bonus and a $7000 pay rise for successful graduates was designed to meet a government target of 2500 HALT teachers by 2025.

“These new incentives will attract even more teachers to put their hand up and gain recognition for their work,” she said.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for our best teachers to be recognised and remunerated for their impact.”

Once accredited, teachers will be able to access salaries of up to $120,000 and mentor other educators.

The HALT accreditation is designed to recognise and reward ‘highly effective, innovative and exemplary’ teaching practices. Picture: supplied

Ms Mitchell said almost 600 teachers had signed up since the accreditation process was “streamlined” last year.

“There are already 310 HALTs in NSW, but we have an ambitious goal to increase the number to at least 2500 by 2025,” she said.

“I am thrilled that we are on track to meet this target.”

She said the increased salary potential for NSW teachers was an effort to keep the best teachers in the classroom.

The announcement comes amid a teaching shortage in the state with thousands of vacancies and a 30 per cent decline in people studying teaching, according to the Teachers Federation of NSW.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released last week show NSW’s public education system has the worst student to teacher ratio in the country.

Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos described the 14.2 students per teacher as a “classroom crisis”.

“Failing to act on unsustainable workloads and uncompetitive salaries has led to an exodus of teachers from the profession, with resignations now overtaking retirements,” he said.

“Without urgent action, the situation is only going to get worse.

“Two thirds of teachers say they are burnt out and 60 per cent say they plan to leave teaching within the next five years.”

Originally published as Key industry’s employees offered cash bonus under new plan