Otago and Southland primary school teachers may be among the 460 nationwide who were being paid less than minimum wage until earlier this month.
The minimum wage was previously $16.50 per hour ($660 for a 40-hour week), but as of April 1, 2019, the Government increased it to $17.70 per hour (or $708 for a 40-hour week).
When asked how many New Zealand primary school teachers had spent any period this year employed on full-time hours (40 hours per week) while earning less than $660 (gross) per week, Ministry of Education infrastructure service head Kim Shannon said as at April 3, 460 primary school teachers were employed by schools full-time and were earning less than the minimum wage.
The issue affected untrained teachers, or beginning teachers who start on a provisional rate while the salary assessment process is completed to confirm their pay rate.
The ministry said the rates in the collective agreements were set three years ago when they were last negotiated, and a small number of rates had now fallen below the minimum wage.
New Zealand Principals' Federation president Whetu Cormick said it was feasible some of those affected were working in Otago and Southland schools, but he did not know which ones or how many teachers were affected.
Ms Shannon said: ''The majority of New Zealand's teachers and all non-teaching school employees paid through the schools payroll are on the correct pay rate.''
She said employing staff on sub-minimum wage, until alerted otherwise, was not standard ministry payroll practice.
The ministry had worked with Education Payroll Ltd and schools to amend existing processes to ensure minimum wage adjustments were 2019-compliant.
Back-pay was provided to affected teachers on May 8.
Further work was being done to ensure minimum wage adjustments were captured across all the schools payroll workforce in future, she said.
