Monitoring Teacher Supply 2009

Summary

In 2009, staffing vacancies as a proportion of all entitlement positions, decreased from 0.9 percent in 2008 to 0.8 percent. The decrease was due to a drop in the proportion of vacancies at secondary schools (from 1.1% in 2008 to 0.8% in 2009). The proportion of vacancies (at less than 1%) for secondary schools was the lowest recorded since 2000. At secondary schools, the subject areas with the highest vacancies were English (17.5% of all secondary vacancies), Technology (14.4%) and Māori (including 8.2% in Te Reo Māori and 4.0% in Māori Medium/Bilingual). The proportion of vacancies at primary schools remained at the same level as recorded for the past three years (0.7%).

Re-advertising is considered to be an indication of ‘hard-to-staff’ positions. The proportion of re-advertised vacancies has dropped from 0.5 percent in 2008 to 0.3 percent in 2009. Again, the decrease was due to a drop in the secondary sector (from 0.7% to 0.4%), while re-advertised positions at primary schools remained at the same as the previous year (0.3%).

Overall, similar to the previous years, the proportion of vacancies and re-advertised positions were greatest in schools in rural localities (population <1,000), in schools with a higher proportion of Māori students on their roll, and in low decile schools (deciles 1-3). Schools in the Wellington local office area recorded the highest proportion of vacancies (1.2%) of all entitlement positions (above the national average of 0.8%), and Whangarei and Hamilton experienced the highest proportion of re-advertised positions (0.6%; above the national average of 0.3%).

The survey also examined sources of teachers supply for New Zealand schools, such as the recruitment of first year beginning teachers, and overseas-trained teachers. In 2009, there was a drop in the proportion of first year beginning teachers but the proportion of overseas-trained teachers who began teaching in New Zealand for the first time in 2008 and 2009 remained fairly consistent.

In 2009, both primary and secondary principals were asked to indicate if they had experienced difficulties accessing day relief teachers in terms 3 and 4 in 2008. More than one third (39%) of the schools indicated that they had no difficulties sourcing day relief teachers. A further third of the principals indicated that such a situation had occurred occasionally (3-5 days), and a further fifth indicating it had only happened rarely (1-2 days) at their school.

Anecdotal reports indicated that some schools have difficulties recruiting qualified teachers who are familiar with the New Zealand curriculum and teaching in the New Zealand context. Very few primary principals had advertised for a Scale A teacher over the past six months and received no NZ applicants (2%). Most (70%) had received at least four or more NZ applicants. In secondary schools, vacancies in Chemistry, te reo Māori, Physics, and Technology had a lower proportion of New Zealand trained applicants compared with English, Health & PE, Maths & Statistics and General Science.

Teacher supply remains a focus for the Ministry of Education to ensure schools have sufficient numbers of teachers in the classrooms. The teacher supply situation will continued to be closely monitored by the Ministry.