Executive Summary

Since 1997, the Research Division of the Ministry of Education has undertaken a Teacher Vacancy Survey of all state and state integrated schools at the beginning of each school year to monitor the staffing situation in New Zealand schools. The following report details the results from the latest survey undertaken at the beginning of 2002.

The format of the survey has remained virtually unchanged since 1997 and asks principals to indicate the number of teacher vacancies and re-advertised teacher vacancies in their schools on the first day of the school year, how these vacancies are being covered, and for information on the numbers of beginning and overseas teachers in their schools. Principals in secondary schools are also asked to indicate the subject areas in which the vacancies in their schools occur.

The 2002 survey achieved an excellent response rate of 99.4 percent (99.5% of primary and 99.2% of secondary schools). Just 12 primary schools and three secondary schools chose not to respond.

The number of schools with vacancies, as well as the actual number of vacancies within schools, increased this year for both primary and secondary schools. However, the increases were more evident in secondary schools than in primary schools.

Eleven percent of primary schools had vacancies at the beginning of the 2002 school year compared with 38 percent of secondary schools (15% of schools overall). As a proportion of all entitlement positions, vacancies in primary schools increased from 1.0 percent in 2001 to 1.2 percent in 2002, with secondary vacancies increasing from 1.1 percent to 1.5 percent this year.

While the proportion of all schools with re-advertised vacancies increased across both sectors, re-advertised positions, as a proportion of all entitlement positions, increased at the secondary level only (up from 0.4 percent in 2001 to 0.7 percent in 2002). Re-advertised vacancies in the primary sector remained at the same level as last year (0.2%).

Further results from the Teacher Vacancy Survey this year found that:

The highest levels of vacancies in secondary schools in 2002 were recorded in science subjects (13%) and in English (13%), followed closely by vacancies in management positions (12%), in technology subjects (12%) and in mathematics (12%).

Teacher vacancies continued to be more likely in rural and minor-urban areas than in other areas, in schools with the largest concentrations of Māori students, and in schools with lower decile ratings (deciles 1-3).

The highest proportion of vacancies were recorded in the Whangarei, (2.0% of their entitlement positions vacant), Invercargill (1.7%) and Manukau regions (1.7%), with the Whangarei region also recording the highest proportion of re-advertised vacancies (0.8%).

As found in previous years, the use of trained relief staff employed for 10 weeks or less was the most common method of covering vacancies in both primary (60.3%) and secondary (57.7%) schools. This year, there was a slight increase in primary schools using departing staff, class reorganisation and teachers with limited authority to teach to cover their vacancies compared with data from the previous year (2001). For secondary schools, departing staff (17%) were used as a measure to cover vacancies to a greater extent this year than last year (10% in 2001).

The number of first year beginning teachers continued to increase this year, with 2,454 first year beginning teachers being employed in New Zealand schools at the start of the 2002 school year (1,563 in primary schools and 891 in secondary schools).

There were 814 overseas teachers (who had taught for the first time in New Zealand in either 2000, 2001, or 2002) teaching here at the beginning of 2002, compared with 679 overseas teachers identified at the same time last year (2001). Almost two-thirds (62%) of overseas teachers were teaching in secondary schools.