Summary

This paper reports on teacher movement statistics between regions and looks at the distance moved when teachers take up a role in a different school. We look at full-time teachers who move to another school, year-on-year, and assess how many move to a different region and how many move a significantly large distance.

This is of interest to the Ministry because the Teacher Demand and Supply (TDS) model assumes that the national teaching workforce is mobile and that teachers will move to where there are jobs. The TDS model is an annual projection tool released by the Ministry, which forecasts the number of teachers schools will require in the future (ie, teacher demand) and compares this with an estimate of the number of teachers that will be available for schools to employ (ie, teacher supply). The results of this forecasting are used as an input into the Ministry’s advice on teacher supply.

Our analysis in this paper suggests that the teaching workforce is not very mobile and very few teachers are likely to move to a different part of the country to take up a new role. Therefore, while a national-level TDS model still provides some information on overall numbers of teachers and jobs, a regional level TDS model may be more useful.