Cultural leadership allowance (CULA)
This allowance recognises the mahi done in schools and kura by kaiako with extensive cultural knowledge and capabilities, serving as cultural leaders within their schools and community. The allowance is $5,000 per annum and was negotiated as part of settlements for the:
- Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement 2023-2025
- Area School Teachers’ Collective Agreement 2023-2025
- Primary Principals’ (NZEI) Collective Agreement 2023-2025
- Area School Principals’ Collective Agreement 2023-2025.
Principals
Principals who are eligible, will receive the allowance automatically. Payments to principals who are eligible began in pay period 23, pay day 05 February 2024.
Teachers
In February 2024, the Ministry of Education will contact area schools and eligible primary schools about the application process for teachers. Only primary schools meeting agreed phase one allocation criteria for allowances will be contacted.
The allowance is part of the Ministry’s commitment to improving pay and working conditions for frontline education staff and recognising the important role they play. Details about the agreed process to allocate these allowances to teachers can be found at on the Ministry’s website – Cultural leadership allowance
Adding the allowance for one teacher using EdPay
- Go to EdPay > Employee dashboard
- Select the teacher who is receiving the allowance
- On the teacher's Job page, scroll down to Allowance entitlements
- Select the plus icon in the top right corner, to open the list of allowances
5. Next to the Cultural Leadership allowance select Add/Update
6. Enter the start and end date for the allowance, and select CONTINUE
The Start date should be whenever the teacher became eligible to receive the allowance. It that was from the beginning of the year then please enter, 28 January 2024 as the start date.
The End date is whenever the teacher should stop receiving the allowance. This could be the end of their fixed-term employment. For permanent staff please enter 31/12/2049 as the end date and they will continue receiving the allowance until their employment ends.
7. Then, select SUBMIT
Splitting the allowance between two teachers
The Cultural Leadership allowance can be split evenly between two teachers at the school ($2500 to each teacher).
Unfortunately, we are not able to process a request for only one half of the allowance, and any requests like this will be returned to the school to correct.
1. Download the Teaching unit/ Payment allocation/ Allowance change for teachers form (EP16t), from EdPay.govt.nz.
2. On the same form, provide the name and MoE numbers of both teachers the allowance is being allocated to. The allowance code for the split allowance is CULAH.
