Teacher-to-child ratios

The minimum number of teaching staff required at a service is defined by Schedule 2 (Adult-to-child ratios) of the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008. The number of children per teacher in education and care services that cater for under two year-olds only and operating all-day should be five (5) at the maximum. For education and care services and kindergartens catering for children two years old and over only or catering for both age groups and operating all-day, the maximum number of children per teacher should be ten (10). For sessional ECE centres, the ratio is 1:15 at the maximum.

Data on teacher-to-child ratios is collected using the 'busiest time' question on the Annual Census of ECE Services and asks for the number of children and teaching staff at the busiest time during the survey week. As such, the number of teaching staff includes day-to-day relievers as well as the usual teaching staff present at that time, and the number of children includes casual attendees as well as  children on the regular roll.

Figure 4 and table 1 below show the teacher-to-child ratios for centre-based teacher-led ECE services². Across all centre-based teacher-led services, there was an average of 1 teacher for every 6 children in 2013. This ranged from an average of 1:3 for education and care services catering to under twos only to 1:13 for sessionally-run kindergartens.Teacher-to-child ratios have largely remained constant between 2010 and 2013.

Figure 4: Distribution of teacher-to-child ratios by service type and category, 2013

Figure 4 shows the large range of ratios operating across the different types of services. All-day education and care services catering for under two year olds only are least dispersed, with 88% operating with 1 teacher to between 2 and 4 children. This is not surprising as the lower the ratio, the smaller the distribution possible.

The teacher-to-child ratios in the sessional kindergarten services are most dispersed. These range from 1 teacher to 5 children at a minimum to 1 teacher to 15 children at the top of the range.

Education and care services and kindergartens catering for only children two years old and over and operating all-day have to comply with the same regulations for minimum teacher-to-child ratios as each other (regulations described on previous page). Table 1 below gives the average teacher-to-child ratios by roll size for all-day education and care services and all-day kindergartens catering only for children two years old and over.

1 shows that for both education and care services and kindergartens, the larger the roll size, the more children to each teacher on average. For all-day kindergartens, the table shows an incremental increase in the teacher-to-child ratio which follows the incremental increase in roll size.

There has been no significant change in the teacher-to-child ratios by roll size between 2011 and 2013.

Teacher Turnover

In 2013, the rate of annual teacher turnover for centre-based teacher-led service types³ (education and care, and kindergarten) was 19.4%. Turnover rates have ranged between this 19.4% and 25.6% since 2005, with the highest rate occurring in 2008.

Between 2007 and 2008, teaching staff turnover increased noticeably, by 9% (2.1 percentage points), this could be the result of a few factors:

• The introduction of 20 Hours ECE which provided fully funded early childhood education for up to 6 hours per day, and up to 20 hours per week for all three and four year olds. This change, supported by already strong underlying population growth at these ages, led to a 10% growth in licensed services between 2007 and 2009.
• The Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 which stated that 50% of required staff in teacher-led licensed services must hold a recognised qualification.
• Kindergartens started moving to an all-day model and therefore required more teaching staff. As these teaching staff may have transferred from education and care services, this would explain the higher turnover for both types of service.

It is important to note that turnover rate is affected by both loss to the sector and the appointment of new staff. High or increasing turnover, as occurred in 2008, can be a positive indicator where it represents an expanding workforce. Alternatively it can reflect increasing losses as occurred with unqualified staff in 2012.

Figure 5: Average annual rate of teacher turnover for teacher-led centre-based ECE services (2005-2013)

Notes:

1. Sources: ECE turnover (Ministry of Education); Education & Training and national rates (Statistics New Zealand).
2. The national education and training turnover rate for 2010 from SNZ was unexplainably high so has not been included here. Teaching staff turnover across all centre-based teacher-led ECE services is similar to turnover rates for the wider education and training sector, and higher than the national workforce turnover rate. The national annual average turnover rate as at March 2012 was 16.3% and the annual average turnover rate for the education and training industry as a whole was 22.1% (Statistics New Zealand, 2013).

Kindergarten turnover has been consistently lower than education and care services (15% compared with 20% in 2013). Apart from the increase in turnover in 2008, total turnover for kindergartens and education and care services has closely followed the rate for the education and training industry as a whole.

Since reaching a peak in 2008, turnover rates for the ECE sector have since fallen to below 2005 levels and are currently still declining. This decline, in part may be influenced by the change in 2011 to the subsidy funding rates for ECE services. The rates for services with 80-99% and 100% qualified teaching staff were removed and replaced with a single rate. This may have given qualified teaching staff less opportunities within the sector.

Turnover is influenced by whether teaching staff are qualified or not. Figure 6 shows that the turnover rates for education and care and kindergartens varies for qualified and non qualified teaching staff. Qualified teachers are those that have an early childhood education teaching qualification approved by the New Zealand Teaching Council. This includes teaching staff with primary level teaching qualifications for 2011 and 2012 as since November 2010 these teachers are included for funding purposes.

Figure 6: Average annual rate of teacher turnover for teacher-led services by whether or not teachers were qualified (2005-2013)

The average turnover rate for qualified teaching staff 2005-2011 was consistently higher than for non qualified teaching staff. It reached a maximum rate of 27% in 2008 when all turnover rates peaked irrespective of qualification status.

Since 2011 however, the turnover rate for non qualified teaching staff has risen, while the rate for qualified teaching staff has continued to decline. In 2012, the turnover rate for non qualified teaching staff exceeded that of qualified teaching staff for the first time since 2005. On 1 February 2011 the subsidy funding rates for ECE services were changed and this may have provided some services with less incentive to hire qualified staff once reaching the 80% threshold, providing a limiting effect on the turnover of qualified staff.

As mentioned earlier, turnover rates are affected by both expansion and loss. The teacher turnover rate at a service is linked to the sustainability of the service and includes teaching staff who move to another ECE service (movements) and teaching staff who leave the sector completely (losses).

Figure 7 shows that the proportion of teaching staff lost from the sector has fallen from 9.4% in 2005 to 7.3% in 2013.

Turnover was highest in 2008 for both qualified and non qualified teaching staff (Figure 6), however the percentage of teaching staff lost to the sector dropped significantly for non qualified teaching staff and had only a slight affect on qualified teaching staff. This followed the introduction of 20 Hours ECE, which as stated earlier, supported by population growth, led to a 10% growth in licensed services between 2007 and 2009. Therefore although turnover was high in 2008 it was mostly due to staffing gains and not teaching staff leaving positions, or the sector in general.

The proportion of qualified staff lost to the sector went up 2.3 percentage points in 2011 and this is likely due to the change in funding bands for qualified staff. Qualified teaching staff leaving services may have not had the choice of ECE services that they had previously.

Figure 7: Proportion of teachers lost to the ECE sector by whether or not they were qualified (2005-2013)

Figure 8 (next page) shows the proportion of services according to their rate of teacher turnover. Graphs are shown for all services and for small, medium-sized and large services, based on the number of teaching staff working.

The breakdown between the "no turnover" and "1–33% turnover" categories differs considerably by service size. A far higher proportion of small services have no teacher turnover compared with large services. This is hardly surprising and reflects the fact that the chance of a small service losing one teacher (a third of the teaching staff in the case of a three teacher centre) is less than the chance of a large service losing one teacher (a tenth of the teaching staff in the case of a ten teacher centre). Conversely, the impact of that loss will be considerably greater for a small service compared with a large service.

The graphs in figure 8 are consistent with the teacher turnover rates shown in figure 6 and show that turnover rates peaked in 2008, especially in the case of small and medium- sized services. The graphs show that service size broadly made little difference to the trends in teacher turnover.

Figure 8: Percentage of teacher-led services by teacher turnover bands and service size (2005-2013)