Teacher Census
This page describes the Teacher Census data collection.
Teacher Census
The Teacher Census is a survey of teachers working in state and state integrated schools carried out by the Ministry of Education every three years. Teacher Census data collections have taken place in 1998, 2001 and 2004.
Whilst Teacher Census questions vary for each census, they essentially cover a range of areas including date of birth, gender, ethnicity, iwi (first collected 2004), teacher registration status, qualifications, years of teaching service in New Zealand and overseas, current designation, professional development, labour market interest, proficiency to teach the curriculum in a language other than English, delivering the curriculum in Māori or a Pasifika language (first collected 2004), secondary teacher teaching subjects and year of schooling level of students taught.
Ethnicity and date of birth information collected by the census is used to validate details held on the payroll. Aggregate Teacher Census information is analysed by the Ministry of Education, and results are published and made available to teachers, schools and teacher organisations.
The data collected by the Teacher Census update and add to the Ministry of Education's knowledge and research database on teachers. This information is used to help with teacher supply monitoring, and a wide range of other teacher related analysis, planning and policy work. For example, Education Workforce Policy have used Teacher Census information get an idea of the number of teachers who are able to teach in Māori medium settings and information about the range of teaching subjects of secondary school teachers. It has helped with policies about professional development and study awards. It has also helped with workforce planning, for example developing the career pathways and specialist teacher qualifications that were recommendations of the Ministerial Taskforce on Secondary Remuneration and the Working Party on Qualifications for Primary Teachers.
Related Education Counts Documents
Data Collections: a description of different data collections.
Collection Forms: copies of the forms used to capture information for the data collections.
Guidelines: guidance on the collection and/or use of data collections.
Code Sets: lists of values used to code data items on the data collection forms.