Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools Pay Rates 2026: Teacher & School Staff Pay

Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) governs close to 300 Catholic primary and secondary schools across Melbourne and regional Victoria, making it one of the largest single school employers in the country. Its staff are teachers, education support officers, school administration and business managers, and maintenance staff.

MACS staff work under a Victorian Catholic education multi-enterprise agreement, negotiated across the dioceses with the Independent Education Union — search our agreements database for the current version, as it is registered under the education office rather than the MACS name. The federal safety net underneath is the Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 and the Educational Services (Schools) General Staff Award 2020 — tabled below as the floor every agreement rate must exceed.

The federal awards relevant to Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) roles:

• Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 (MA000077)
• Educational Services (Schools) General Staff Award 2020 (MA000076)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools Ltd declared 18,442 employees — 0% casual and 80.5% women, with 1,036 in management roles. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

The Educational Services (Teachers) Award 2020 (MA000077) sets these annual minimums for school teachers:

Teachers progress by accreditation and experience; the award's Level 5 is for Highly Accomplished/Lead Teacher accreditation. Casual (relief) teachers are paid a daily rate derived from these figures.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Learning support officers, administration, IT, library, grounds and maintenance staff sit on the Educational Services (Schools) General Staff Award 2020 (MA000076). Entry pay points by level:

Term-time-only arrangements are common in schools; the award's annualised-pay and school-holiday rules matter as much as the hourly rate.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

As at 6 September 2026, our corpus of 14,141 federally registered enterprise agreements holds no current agreement for Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS). That usually means one of three things: the employer pays on the award (or on individual contracts above it), the agreement covering you is registered under a different entity name (check the employer name on your payslip and search our agreements database), or — for state public-sector employers — pay is set by a state award or agreement outside the federal register. If you have a copy of an agreement that names Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS), it beats the award figures above.

General award-compliance issues that come up across the school sector. This is a checklist for your own payslip, not a finding about Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS):

• Teacher pay steps not advancing with accreditation and years of service.
• Term-time-only support staff paid an annualised rate that doesn't match the hours actually worked.
• Unpaid duties — camps, evening events and supervision outside the agreed hours without the agreement's allowances.
• Wrong general-staff level for the responsibility actually carried.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.