Katherine teachers will meet with NT Education Department chiefs again today as pressure builds on the controversial rental subsidy issue.
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The government still intends to "save" $500,000 from the Katherine program despite media reports today suggesting teacher rents "are safe".
Katherine teachers are pressing to have the issue resolved by the end of this school term which finishes next week.
Katherine Times has been told the department is now seeking to have cuts, or changes as they are now being called, spread wider than first intend so the pain is shared more widely.
The NT Opposition has pressed the government on the Katherine issue at estimates hearings this week by Opposition deputy leader Lia Finocchiaro.
Questions have been asked over the average time taken to recruit a teacher to Katherine?
"Is it a relatively easy process?" Mrs Finocchiaro has asked.
"Do you get a lot of people wanting to teach in Katherine or is it often an extensive delay in the recruitment period?"
The department has said Katherine is the hardest place in the NT to recruit teachers.
It was one of the reasons the rental subsidy scheme was established in the first place.
In terms of recruiting for Katherine, Education Minister Selena Uibo said it differed between specific positions at a high school and "generalist" positions at a primary school.
Ms Uibo said there had been "some misinformation in the media" regarding the issue.
"The subsidy received for government employee housing for education staff in Katherine is undergoing a review," she said.
Of about 300 education staff in Katherine, the department "was looking at" 94 education staff who receive the subsidy, or about a third.
"There are anomalies in this subsidy which is an incentive which was established nearly 30 years ago in the 1990s to attract teachers and education staff in Katherine."
She said "the messaging has been misunderstood" with people thinking that the subsidy is being cut.
"That is incorrect. We are looking at that $500,000 out of the overall $2m housing subsidy in the township itself and seeing what type of efficiencies we can put in place there in an area that has never been reviewed or indexed."
Mrs Finocchiaro also questioned the government on its commitment to increase the number of teachers on permanent contracts.
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