Entering and leaving teaching

The data on this page looks at teachers who move into or out of our schooling teacher workforce each year in state and state-integrated schools.

Last Updated: June 2024

Introduction

The data on this page looks at teachers who move into or out of our schooling teacher workforce each year in state and state-integrated schools.

We calculate entry rates into the teacher workforce and leaving rates out of the teacher workforce.

  • Entry rates look at those teachers who were not teaching at all in one year and were teaching at any point in the next.
  • Leaving rates look at those teachers who were teaching at any point one year and were not teaching at all in the next.

To calculate rates, these groups of teachers are taken as a percentage of the total size of the teacher workforce.

This page presents some high level trends and makes data on entry and leaving rates available in spreadsheets, broken down by a range of variables.

For a summary report of the trends in teacher entry and leaving rates - an indicator report is available for download as a pdf under “Downloads” at the top right-hand corner of this page.

Page Contents:

Overview

In 2023, the entry rate into teaching was at 9.0%, the same as in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 2020 and 2021 entry rates into teaching decreased as there was a lower demand for day relief teachers during the COVID-19 lockdowns and an increase in retention of regular (permanent and fixed term) staff, contributing to the decrease in teachers entering the profession. As pandemic restrictions were lifted across 2022, we have seen more day relief teachers entering teaching again, contributing to a rise in the overall entry rate to 9.2% in 2022, and a slight drop down to 9.0% in 2023, back to the pre-pandemic level.

Figure 1: Entry rates into teaching in 2023 have returned to their pre-pandemic level

Figure 1


The rate of teachers leaving teaching decreased in 2022. Leaving rates decreased 0.6 percentage points, from 8.1% in 2021 to 7.5% in 2022, as seen in Figure 2. This brings teacher rates back broadly in line with those seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 2: Leaving rates from teaching decreased in 2022, returning broadly to their pre-pandemic level

Figure 2


For a more detailed summary of the trends in teacher entry and leaving rates - an indicator report is available for download as a pdf under “Downloads” at the top right-hand corner of this page.

Teachers Entering and Leaving Teaching: Interactive Pivot Tables

These workbooks allow you to create your tables by any combination of variables. They include the option of displaying teacher entry and leaving statistics by teacher characteristics (such as age) and school characteristics (such as decile).

Please note: use of these spreadsheets requires MS Excel version 2007 or later.

Entering the Teacher Workforce: Time Series

These workbooks provide statistics on teachers entering the teacher workforce (numbers and rates), broken down into a range of teacher demographics, school characteristics (such as decile), and regional type variables.

Numbers of teachers entering the workforce are supplied in the first workbook, and rates are supplied in the second.

Leaving the Teacher Workforce: Time Series

These workbooks provide statistics on teachers leaving the teacher workforce (numbers and rates), broken down into a range of teacher demographics, school characteristics (such as decile), and regional type variables.

Numbers of teachers leaving the workforce are supplied in the first workbook, and rates are supplied in the second.

How are entry and leaving rates calculated?

When measuring teacher entry and leaving rates we are considering our total pool of teachers and measuring whether teachers move into or out of this pool each year.

This pool of teachers we are considering includes both regular (permanent and fixed term) and day relief teachers, which means that teachers moving from regular positions to day relief and vice versa are not counted as entering or leaving, as they are moving within our pool of teachers.

When determining if a teacher enters or leaves the workforce, we look at consecutive years, and consider whether a teacher is teaching across both of those years or not. If they are teaching in the first year and not the second, they are considered to be leaving, and if they are teaching in the second year but not the first they are counted as entering.

Our leaving rate is calculated by taking the total number of regular teachers who leave the teacher workforce in a year and dividing that by the total number of regular teachers employed during the last year they were teaching, i.e.:

Our entry rate is calculated by taking the total number of regular teachers who enter the teacher workforce in a year and dividing that by the total number of regular teachers employed during the year they start teaching, i.e.:

Our entry rate includes both teachers who are new to teaching, and those who have taught previously. To be counted in entry statistics teachers need to be absent from teaching across a whole year, this means that our entry (and leaving) statistics pick up some teachers who may have taken a short break from teaching for something like parental leave.

Some teachers will work in more than one role across the year. For each year, these teachers are reported only once against the role in which they worked the most hours during the year. We call this their main role, and we measure their movements between these main roles from year to year.

Our entry data is reported one year ahead of our leaving data. For example we currently have teacher entry data available up to 2023 but leaving data is only available until 2022. This is because to measure leaving rates, we need to wait until the following year is completed before we know if a teacher has left or not. So 2023 leaving data is not yet available because we need to wait for 2024 to end (and for the 2024 data to be processed) before we know if our 2023 teachers were still teaching in 2024, to determine if 2023 teachers left or not.

Data Dimensions Notes

The available dimensions are:

Year

For teachers entering the workforce: This is the year that teachers are entering into the workforce. (i.e. the year they start teaching - either for the first time or after being away from the workforce for at least a year.)

For teachers leaving the workforce: This is the year that teachers are leaving from. (i.e. the last year they taught in - either to permanently leave or to go on a break from teaching in the following year.)

Teacher: Experience

This allows us to separate our teachers who are entering the teacher workforce into those who are new to our teacher workforce and those who are returning to it after a break from teaching.

New: teachers who have never worked as a teacher in a state or state integrated school in New Zealand before (this includes both new domestic initial teacher education graduates and teachers entering from overseas).

Returning: teachers who have worked as a teacher in a state or state integrated school in New Zealand before, but were not in the teacher workforce in the previous year.

Teacher: Ethnic Group

The Ministry uses Statistics New Zealand's definition of ethnicity: ethnicity is the ethnic group or groups that people identify with or feel they belong to. Ethnicity is a measure of cultural affiliation, as opposed to race, ancestry, nationality or citizenship.

Total response ethnicity is used here. This means that teachers can identify with up to 3 different ethnic groups, and have been counted in each ethnic group they belong to and once in "Total" Ethnic Group.

Teacher: Age 5yr Group

The age of the teacher, in five year age-groups. Age is calculated as at 1 July for each year.

Teacher: Age 10yr Group

The age of the teacher, in ten year age-groups. Age is calculated as at 1 July for each year.

Teacher: Gender

The gender of the teacher.

Teacher: Employment Type

The type of contract a teacher is on - Fixed Term or Permanent.

Teacher: Full/Part Time

The type of contract a teacher is on - Full Time or Part Time.

School: Gender

The gender of the students that a school caters for, for example, co-educational, or single sex.

Equity Index Band

The Equity Index Band of a school is an indicator of the relative degree of socioeconomic barriers to educational achievement faced by students at the school, and is intended as a tool for analysing and reporting on socioeconomic trends in education data. Equity Index Bands are derived from the Equity Index used for school funding. There are seven Equity Index Bands each containing a similar number of schools. In order of increasing socioeconomic barriers the bands are named: “Fewest”, “Few”, “Below Average”, “Average”, “Above Average”, “Many”, and “Most”.

While the equity index has been in use only since 2023, here Equity Index Bands are used from 2019 onwards. This is done using 2023 Equity index numbers in order to provide a time series for socioeconomic analysis, as 2023 EQI numbers provide a reasonable estimation of the socioeconomic circumstances of a school's learners back to 2019.

Some schools are not assigned an Equity index band and are included under "Not Applicable". This includes:

  • All private schools (these schools do not have an Equity Index number)
  • Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (the unique nature of this school means that it is inappropriate for inclusion within an Equity Index Band or Group)
  • Schools which are assigned a notional Equity Index number. These include Teen Parent Units, Activity Centres, Regional Health Schools, some specialist schools, and a small number of very small schools. These schools are assigned the maximum Equity Index number to reflect either the particular challenges unique to those settings, and/or limitations on data availability.

More information on the Equity Index Bands and Groups can be found here.

Equity Index Group

There are three groups of schools formed by collapsing the seven Equity Index Bands as follows. The “Fewest” and “Few” Equity Index Bands are combined to form the “Fewer” Equity Index Group. The “Many” and “Most” Equity Index Bands are combined to form the “More” Equity Index Group. The remaining Equity Index Bands are combined to form the “Moderate” Equity Index Group.

More information on the Equity Index Bands and Groups can be found here.

School: Decile

Up until 2022, decile was used by the Ministry as a mechanism for determining the level of equity funding that schools receive schools, and we have also used this as a way to understand socioeconomic trends in education data. From 2023 onward this has been replaced by the Schooling Equity Index.

Schools were assigned a socioeconomic score based on five census derived socioeconomic factors. Decile 1 schools are the 10% of schools with the greatest proportion of students from the most socioeconomically deprived areas.  Decile 10 schools are the 10% of schools with the greatest proportion of students from the least socioeconomically deprived areas.

School: Decile Grouped

School decile grouped into Low (Decile 1-3), Medium (Decile 4-7), and High (Decile 8-10). Available up until 2022.

School: Sector

Teachers are grouped into the primary or secondary sector depending on the type of the school they work in.  The primary sector includes all primary schools, intermediates and special schools. The secondary sector includes all secondary schools and composite schools (including Te Kura, the correspondence school).

Region: Education Region

The Education Region linked to the school where the teacher is employed.  These are ten administrative regions created by the Ministry of Education and aligned with the Ministry's ten local offices. The Correspondence School is defined as a separate boundary.

Region: Regional Council

The Regional Council linked to the school where the teacher is employed. Regional council boundaries are defined by Statistics New Zealand.

Region: Education Region

The Education Region linked to the school where the teacher is employed.  These are ten administrative regions created by the Ministry of Education and aligned with the Ministry's ten local offices. The Correspondence School is defined as a separate boundary.

Region: Territorial Authority

The territorial authority area linked to the school where the teacher is employed. Territorial authority boundaries are defined by Statistics New Zealand.