Aboriginal Education Assistants’ Pay Increments

Executive, 31 March 2008

Report adopted

Presently it is next to impossible to move to level 6 on the AEA increment level.

A certificate 3 will enable a person to move to level 5 and a diploma is required to move to level 6.

The diploma required to move to the final level is becoming increasingly difficult to get access to and takes 12 months to acquire, meaning that there are very few people on the level 6 pay scale.

The PSA has raised this with the Department who have argued that the prerequisite is there to encourage the continuous education of Aboriginal people. While the PSA encourages the education of Aboriginal people in the community, the unfairness of the requirement for AEAs who have been working for 20+ years with invaluable experience who are unable to reach the 6th level was raised.

The Department has undertaken to look at this further in order to address the PSA's suggestion that years of service be the criteria for moving up the increment scale.