Monitoring Teacher Supply 2009

Availability of Relief Teachers

In the 2009 survey both primary and secondary principals were asked if there were any days during terms 3 and 4 in 2008 when they needed a day relief teacher but no relief teachers were available. If this was the case, principals were asked to indicate if this situation occurred very rarely (1-2 days), occasionally (3-5 days), often (6-10 days) or very often (more than 10 days).

As shown in Figure 1, more than one third of all schools (39%) indicated that they had no difficulties sourcing day relief teachers, with more secondary (50%) than primary (37%) principals indicating this. Around one third of principals indicated that such a situation had occurred occasionally (3-5 days) during terms 3 and 4 in 2008, with a further fifth indicating it had only happened rarely (1-2 days) at their school.

Compared with data collected in the 2008 survey, the proportion of principals who reported having no difficulty sourcing day relief teachers during terms 3 and 4 increased, from 34 percent in 2008 to 40 percent in 2009. This increase was more pronounced for secondary schools (41% in 2008 to 50% in 2009) than it was for primary schools (33% in 2008 to 37% in 2009).

Figure 1: How often principals needed a relief teacher during terms 3 and 4 in 2008 but no relief teachers were availableª

ª    n = 1,959 primary and 388 secondary schools