12 August 2004

Help for staffing in schools announced

Schools are to get more help with staffing at the start of the school year as a result of a change to teacher staffing entitlements, Education Minister Trevor Mallard announced today.

“From 2005 schools will be able to carry over their under-used or over-used staffing entitlements for the year until 31 March of the following year,” Trevor Mallard said.

“This change gives schools an opportunity to employ teachers in the early part of the year from the previous year’s staffing entitlement.

“Extending the time for balancing year-end staff usage helps to address the education sector's concerns that currently schools essentially can lose the opportunity to use their full staffing entitlement because of the summer holiday period.

"The change to the "banking staffing" policy is aimed at ensuring schools can optimise their individual staffing entitlements by giving them a longer timeframe before their entitlement expires.

“Being able to carry over their staffing entitlements well into the new year gives schools greater prospects of starting the school year with a full complement of staff,” Trevor Mallard said.

"Banking Staffing" provides a way for boards to maximise their staffing entitlement. The policy was introduced in 2001 and means that boards of trustees can manage their staffing in a more flexible manner. Previously, boards at centrally resourced schools were not able to staff over their allocated staffing entitlement. With banking staffing, schools in any one year can choose to: Anticipate up to 10 per cent of their staffing entitlement - using it in advance or going into overdraft; Save up a staffing entitlement to use later in the year - ie "banking" the entitlement; Use the staffing entitlement on a full year basis - so there is no saving and no overdraft

It means that when entitlement staffing is un-used because of unplanned circumstances, the un-used staffing is credited to the school staffing bank, so the school can use it later in the year.

ENDS

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