- No sign yet
Details and sources
- Promised
- FAST launched its 2025 manifesto at Apita o Pisaga Hall in Salelologa, Savaiʻi, on Saturday 12 July 2025 2. Talamua reported on 14 July 2025 that the manifesto included payment of pre-school teachers by government 1. Talamua gave no amount, start date or deadline 1. We did not find the manifesto document, so its exact wording is unconfirmed. Samoa Observer's summary of 28 August 2025, the day before the vote, calls the pledge 'teacher pay for church schools' 3. The two reports differ on who the promise covers 13. In 2021 FAST made a wider promise, to pay the salaries of all teachers from pre-school to secondary school 4.
- What happened
- The 2025/26 budget address of 6 October 2025 raised the One Government Grant from SAT$18 million to SAT$18.5 million 14. The grant also supports early childhood centres 13. The 2025/26 address has no line for pre-school teacher pay 14. On 26 January 2026 Talamua reported that the Prime Minister had asked the Remuneration Tribunal to review teachers' salaries; Talamua wrote 'Numeration Tribunal' 5. On 12 February 2026 a Press Secretariat report, published by Samoa Global News, said Cabinet had asked the Tribunal for a pay rise proposal for government employees 6. The Prime Minister said the Tribunal's task would take five to six months 7. The same day, Samoa Observer reported the Prime Minister saying all government employees would get a pay rise 8. In 2024 the Ministry counted only 2 of its 343 early childhood teachers in government centres 910. Most of these teachers are not government employees, so the Tribunal task as described does not cover them 69. We found no published Tribunal result by 21 October 2026. On 13 May 2026 Samoa Observer reported that the grant would now be managed through the District Development Program (Fono Faʻavae), not the Ministry of Education 24. Schools were then still waiting for their full share of the SAT$18.5 million grant 2239. The Prime Minister said the delay was caused in part by moving the grant from the old school committee structure to the Fono Faʻavae 40. The Prime Minister said the government had to review the percentages used to divide the grant 23. The 2026/27 budget address of 26 May 2026 gives SAT$18 million for the grant, shared by 320 schools including early childhood centres 13. The 2026/27 address has no line for pre-school teacher pay 13. On 16 June 2026 Talamua reported that the government is working on a new career structure for teachers 12. Education International's report of the same meeting, dated 22 June 2026, says this includes a pay framework that covers early childhood teachers 11. That is Education International's summary of the Prime Minister's speech, not his own words 11. On 3 July 2026 the government listed the commitments it had delivered from 1 July, and the list does not mention pre-school teachers 15. Samoa Observer's one-year review of 15 September 2026 says several of the biggest pledges remain unfulfilled 16. The full review is behind a paywall, so we do not know whether it covers this promise 16.
- Impact on families
- The Ministry counted 343 early childhood teachers in 2024, down from 411 in 2023 10. The Ministry's 2024 table shows 158 in private centres, 183 in Methodist, EFKS and Catholic centres, and 2 in government centres 9. Under the 2024–2029 early childhood policy, centre management committees must make sure teachers are paid 21. Sources disagree on how much the government pays now. In 2024 UNICEF wrote that the government covers only half of early childhood teachers' salaries 17. UNICEF said the rest tends to come from school grants or money raised by families and communities 18. A 2022 study by National University of Samoa authors says salaries are the centres' responsibility and that Ministry money covered only resources 19. In February 2023, under Fiamē's government, the government newspaper Savali said 60% of the grant would fund teachers' salaries in church and private schools and early childhood education 20. Around March 2024, Samoa Observer reported that the National Council of Early Childhood Education had urged the government to give more support to pre-schools 3834. In the Council President's remarks, the report uses the words 'non-paying wage voluntary preschool teachers', but its quote marks do not show whether the words are hers or the reporter's 33. In 2022, 85 of 421 early childhood staff were helpers or volunteers with no qualification 37. We found no report on how the late grant payments of 2026 affected early childhood teachers' pay 22. Talamua reported on 17 June 2026 that the Education Minister had told Parliament that some school principals face court cases over alleged theft of grant money 25. No principal was named, and we found no court record of these cases. The Minister was replying to former Cabinet Minister Leatinuʻu Wayne Fong, who had argued for returning the grant to the Ministry of Education 41. Leatinuʻu argued that the Ministry has processes to trace and account for the grant's spending 42. The Education Minister said the grant had not been audited for eight years 26. On 1 May 2026 the Prime Minister cited a report that found no audits between 2021 and 2026 under the previous system 27. The two accounts give different periods, and we have not seen the audit report itself 2627.
- Cost
- No costing of this promise has been published. The higher figure is about 2.6 per cent of the SAT$135,407,309 vote for the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2026/27 28. That estimate is seven years old, and we found no newer costing for today's teachers.
- Verdict for families
- Good for aiga
- Can it be done?
- Doable
- Long term
- Good long term
- Who deserves the credit
-
Shared credit
Since 16 September 2025 this government has asked for a teacher pay review and announced a teacher career structure, which Education International reports includes early childhood teachers, but neither has a budget line 5121113. Fiamē's 2021/22 budget, the 2023 Savali statement on the grant and the 2023 plans with the Global Partnership for Education carried it on 29203031.
- Who gains
- If delivered, about 343 early childhood teachers (2024 count), nearly all women (97 per cent in 2021), would get full pay from government instead of part pay or none, and the churches, centre owners and families who now fund the rest would pay less 10321718.
- Who pays
- Taxpayers would carry the full bill, which a 2019 aid design put at SAT$3,481,215 to SAT$3,575,255 a year; until then centre committees, churches and families keep paying 2118.
- Assessment
- The promise would move a cost now carried by centre committees, churches and fundraising families onto the public budget, and the teachers who would gain are nearly all women 211832. On the 2019 estimate of about SAT$3.6 million a year, it is a small share of the education budget and looks affordable 28. It is stalled. The 2026/27 budget has no line for it 13. The grant that reaches centres was paid late in 2026 and falls from SAT$18.5 million to SAT$18 million in 2026/27 141322. The pay framework has no published cost or date 11. The Prime Minister has linked poor results to a shortage of teachers, and a 2026 education project names low early childhood participation as a key challenge, so steady pay matters for children as well as teachers 3536.
Sources (42)
- FAST Party Manifesto Centres on the Family Unit
- FAST Party Manifesto Centres on the Family Unit
- What the three major parties are promising Samoa
- Teachers' salaries on election campaign agenda
- Exam results call for Revamp in the Education System
- Cabinet Directs Remuneration Tribunal to Prepare Equitable Public Sector Pay Increase and Consult Businesses on Minimum Wage
- Cabinet Directs Remuneration Tribunal to Prepare Equitable Public Sector Pay Increase and Consult Businesses on Minimum Wage
- $6 minimum wage, pay rise for civil servants
- Education Statistical Digest 2024
- Education Statistical Digest 2024
- Go Public: Unions work together to defend and invest in public education throughout the Pacific
- Samoa Hosts Pacific Education Leaders Conference for the First Time
- Budget Address 2026/2027
- Budget Address 2025/2026
- Government Delivers on Key Social Commitments from 1 July 2026
- FAST Government one year on: What has been delivered and what remains
- Status Report on Early Childhood Education Systems in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories
- Status Report on Early Childhood Education Systems in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories
- Parental involvement in ECE in Samoa: What is the impact on educational achievement?
- Savali Newspaper, Issue 05, 10 February 2023
- National Early Childhood Education Policy (NECEP) 2024-2029
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Government Education Grant abused and not audited for 8 years
- Government Education Grant abused and not audited for 8 years
- School grants under audit: PM
- Budget Address 2026/2027
- Budget Address 2021/2022
- Sootaga Mautu Faaleaoaoga (Samoa Partnership Compact)
- Concept Note: Systems Capacity Grant Application, Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture Samoa
- Concept Note: Systems Capacity Grant Application, Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture Samoa
- Govt. called out for ignoring ECE
- Govt. investment in children's education needed
- Exam results prompt review of Sāmoa's education system
- Ministry of Education and Culture and UNESCO launch USD 2.5 million GPE-supported Education Transformation Project to strengthen learning pathways in Samoa
- National Early Childhood Education Policy (NECEP) 2024-2029
- Govt. called out for ignoring ECE
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Government Education Grant abused and not audited for 8 years
- Government Education Grant abused and not audited for 8 years
Is it funded?
No budget line
We read the 2025/26 and 2026/27 budget addresses, including the vote for the Ministry of Education and Culture, and neither has a line for pre-school teacher salaries 13. We could not open the Approved Estimates files, so we have not checked them line by line. The only money we found that reaches centres is the One Government Grant, which rose from SAT$18 million to SAT$18.5 million in 2025/26 12. The 2026/27 address gives SAT$18 million, shared by 320 schools including early childhood centres 3. In February 2023 the government said 60% of the grant funds teachers' salaries in church and private schools and early childhood education 8. In May 2026 the Prime Minister said the percentages used to divide the grant had to be reviewed 9. The cost figures in the 2025–2030 sector plan leave out salaries for teachers in private and mission schools 4. On 13 May 2026 schools were still waiting for their full share of the SAT$18.5 million grant 510. The Prime Minister said then that 80 to 90 per cent of the grant was nearing release 6. In 2024/25, before this government, the Ministry spent SAT$17,895,407 of a SAT$18,000,000 grant budget 7. How much of the grant has been paid out in 2026/27 has not been published. How much of it reaches early childhood teachers has not been published either.
Sources (10)
- Budget Address 2025/2026
- Budget Address 2025/2026
- Budget Address 2026/2027
- Education Sector Plan 2025–2030
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Ministry of Education and Culture Annual Report FY2024/2025
- Savali Newspaper, Issue 05, 10 February 2023
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
- Schools to receive funds soon: PM
What research says
Little research
In Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, governments first put early childhood teacher salaries in their budgets in 2018 1. In Fiji, school committees once paid half of these salaries from money they raised, and the Ministry of Finance now guarantees them in full 2. Fiji has moved pre-primary teachers onto full civil service pay scales 4. Fiji's Ministry of Education says all early childhood teachers it employs have been paid full salaries under a full-day programme since August 2025 5. In Fiji these salaries are permanent budget lines that cost less than 1 per cent of education spending 6. UNICEF warns that teacher pay takes a large share of public early childhood spending and can leave other parts of the programme unfunded 3. A World Bank review says early childhood teachers who are valued through pay, status, qualifications and training tend to perform better 7. A March 2026 study for UNICEF Pacific found that children in Sāmoa who do not attend early childhood education are 95% more likely to be developmentally off track 8. We found no study that measures what a salary takeover did for children's learning in the Pacific, so the evidence is thin. Fiji's figures cover teachers its own Ministry employs 5. In Sāmoa, 341 of the 343 early childhood teachers counted in 2024 worked in private or church centres 9. Paying them would mean paying staff of centres the state does not run 9.
Sources (9)
- Status Report on Early Childhood Education Systems in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories
- Status Report on Early Childhood Education Systems in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories
- Status Report on Early Childhood Education Systems in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories
- Fiji National Pre-primary Education Policy (Fiji)
- Govt allocates $34.2 million to boost Early Childhood Education
- Fiji National Pre-primary Education Policy (Fiji)
- Building an Effective Early Childhood Education Workforce (Quality Early Learning, Chapter 3)
- Assessing the Cost of Inaction of ECD Services in Samoa
- Education Statistical Digest 2024
Cost and reach
Reach is the 343 early childhood teachers the Ministry counted in 2024 1. In 2021 there were 420, and 97 per cent of them were women 2. No current cost has been published. A March 2026 study for UNICEF Pacific costed a wider scheme for children aged 2.5 to 6 4. The study put that scheme's cost at SAT$37,014,815 a year, with teacher salaries 61.2% of it 3. That estimate is for an expanded system, not today's workforce 4.
Sources (4)
- Education Statistical Digest 2024
- Concept Note: Systems Capacity Grant Application, Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture Samoa
- Assessing the Cost of Inaction of ECD Services in Samoa
- Assessing the Cost of Inaction of ECD Services in Samoa
Helps: Women · Wage workers · Children · Churches and matai
Paid for by: Taxpayers
Folafolaga · https://folafolaga.pages.dev/promises/fast-school-preschool-teacher-pay/ · Printed from the version last checked 23 October 2026. Every claim's source is listed on that page.