Recognition of Teaching Service For Salary Increment Purposes

Within one school year, 175 or more days of teaching are considered to constitute one full year of teaching service for purposes of the step-on-scale salary calculations.

If the service completed totals less than 175 days within a given school year, teaching days still accumulate but, in this situation, 195 days are required to constitute a full year of service.

Your teaching service will be added once annually. The information is provided by the individual school boards to the Department of Education (Statistics and Data Management).

The service records of all active teachers are then updated, usually in December of the following school year, to the centralized database (C.E.D.A.R).

The recognition of teaching service completed outside the public schools of Nova Scotia is governed by the Governor-In-Council Education Act Regulations referenced above.

If you have completed teaching service included in the regulations, this service may be recognized for salary increment purposes. Verification of this service must come directly from the agency responsible for maintaining teaching service records in that jurisdiction.

Generally, this verification would be supplied by school boards, however, in some jurisdictions - New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, Manitoba, and Nunavut, this is a responsibility of the Department of Education.

Verification of service must state the number of teaching days/teaching months in the school year, the specific school years of employment (eg 2005-2006), the number of days and/or teaching months completed each year, and must be forwarded to the Registrar-Teacher Certification.

Again, this process may involve several steps. Probably the most organized procedure would be to:

• Check the salary grid information available in PDF format (within the Teacher's Collective Agreement, pages 150-151).
• If you are still not satisfied, check with your local School Board as to the reason for your current rate of pay.
• If the problem concerns teaching service records, then you should contact the Registrar's Office via:

Phone: (902) 424 - 6620
Fax: (902) 424 - 3814
E-mail: Please direct your enquiries to our secure online form.

Mailing Address:

Teacher Certification
Department of Education
P. O. Box 578
Halifax, N. S.
B3J 2S9