This group of professionals provide specialist, itinerant support to the increasing number of children with the highest learning needs in schools and ECE centres. They are dealing with huge caseloads and want an improvement in the pay offer from the Ministry.

NZEI Te Riu Roa National Executive member Byron Sanders is on the negotiation team and said the members' vote was a strong one, and a clear indication of the anger felt about the Ministry's offer to them of a 2% pay increase on the day of ratification and a further 2% on 1 March 2019.

"After months of waiting for the Ministry to come to the negotiating table, our members were insulted by the offer. Our caseloads are overwhelming. We need something tangible from the Ministry to reduce our workload, and an improved pay offer,” he said.

“There aren’t enough specialists for the children who need the support, and those of us in the job are pushed to our limits with extreme workloads. We need more front-line specialists so all children get the support they need without delay, and we have to ensure specialist staff are paid enough to both recruit and retain their skills for our children.”

Numbers of children with high needs are increasing. The government has increased funding for those children to access support, but now needs to ensure the specialist staff are available and able to manage with reasonable caseloads.

The Ministry employs about 850 Learning Support specialists, who include educational psychologists, early intervention teachers, advisors on deaf children, Kaitakawaenga, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech language therapists and special education advisors. There are also the specialists who go into schools to support students, staff and communities after a tragedy.

Learning Support specialists should not be confused with Ministry-employed Support Workers. Support Workers work with individual children mainly in early childhood centres, putting into practice the individual programmes developed by their specialist colleagues.