THE salary of early childhood education (ECE) teachers was a concern raised constantly during the education reforms public discussion in the Western Division last week week.

While touring the region, Minister for Education Dr Mahendra Reddy said the issue was a point of major discussion.

“The main reason that ECE teachers are paid $5300 is because they work for four hours in a day,” he said.

“I do understand the concerns of ECE centre managers and even the teachers themselves, but that is the reality.”

Dr Reddy said while the ministry wanted to offer more to ECE teachers, there were a number of issues to consider.

“We want to pay them more but at the moment there are close to 1200 ECE centres.

“There are more ECE centres than primary schools in the country.

“And on average, if there are two teachers in every centre, then we’re talking about 2400 ECE teachers. That is massive distribution.

“As we work towards addressing this, for now we’ve decided to take them on board and start with a salary of $5300.”

Dr Reddy said the public consultations had allowed the ministry to address issues such as teachers’ salary.

He said while some concerns had been addressed by the ministry’s reforms, there were other issues they would be looking into in the coming months.

The ministry conducted consultations in Nadi, Lautoka, Ba, Tavua and Rakiraki earlier last week.