The ACT Party says it will give schools nearly $1 billion more, so long as they abandon national union contracts.
Party leader David Seymour said that the Government surplus of $3.7bn meant the party could promise to pay principals $975 million, to pay good teachers an extra $20,000 each, without cutting services or raising taxes.
"Good teachers help children grow, develop, and reach their full potential which is vital to their future success," Seymour said at the launch of his party's election campaign in Auckland on Saturday.
"Unfortunately, because of union contracts, teachers hit maximum pay after 10 years, schools can't reward successful teachers, and teaching is not regarded as a strong career choice for our brightest graduates."
He said that currently the best teachers earned the same as the worst teachers, and could only earn more by taking on administrative work.
"ACT says this is crazy. We want the best teachers to stay in the profession and in the classroom."
Under the policy, Seymour said "Good Teacher Grants" would boost teachers' pay by $20,000 on average.
"But the schools will only be eligible for this funding if they abandon nationally negotiated union contracts. This will make it easier for principals to replace bad teachers with great ones."
Seymour said participating schools would receive a "cashed-up teaching grant" giving them funding of $93,000 a teacher. Schools would be free to allocate the grant how they wanted, with principals deciding how much to pay individual teachers.
In other education policy, Seymour said ACT would open more "partnership schools" and would increase per-student funding for independent schools to 50 per cent of state school student funding. This would cost $40m, he said.
