Teacher turnover

Teacher turnover looks at the rate at which teachers are leaving and being replenished within schools.

Last Updated: June 2024

Introduction

We measure this by looking at regular (permanent and fixed term) teachers who were employed at a school in one year, and were no longer employed there in the next.

In this data, turnover is further broken down into three components:

  • Leaving Teaching: Teachers leaving the teacher workforce
  • Moving School: Teachers who move to a position at another school
  • Moving to Day Relief: Teachers who move to day relief

To calculate turnover rates, these teachers leaving a school each year are taken as a percentage of the total size of the regular teacher workforce.

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

For a summary report of the trends in teacher turnover - 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 2022 the rate of teacher turnover was 18.5 percent, down 0.3 percent from 18.8 percent in 2021.  This is little-changed from 2021 and seems to be a stabilisation of our turnover rate around pre-pandemic levels, following a large decrease in turnover in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 1: Teacher turnover has decreased slightly to 18.5% in 2022, from 18.8% in 2021

Figure 1: Teacher turnover has decreased slightly to 18.5% in 2022, from 18.8% in 2021


Turnover is made up of three different types of movements regular teachers can make from their current school: moving to a regular role in a different school, moving to day relief, and leaving teaching.

When we look at these components of turnover over time (Figure 2), we see that the largest part of turnover has always been made up of teachers moving to another school.

Figure 2: When turnover is separated into its component parts, teachers moving to another school forms the largest component

Figure 2: When turnover is separated into its component parts, teachers moving to another school forms the largest component

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

Interactive Pivot Table: Teacher Turnover

This workbook allows you to create your tables by any combination of variables. It includes the option of displaying teacher turnover statistics by teacher characteristics (such as age) and school characteristics (such as decile).

Please note: use of this spreadsheet requires MS Excel version 2007 or later.

Time Series Data

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

Numbers of teachers counted in turnover are supplied in the first workbook, and turnover rates are supplied in the second.

Please note: use of this spreadsheet requires MS Excel version 2007 or later.

How is turnover calculated?

When measuring teacher turnover we only consider turnover of regular teachers. This means teachers who are employed on a permanent or fixed term basis and does not include teachers employed as day relief.

In this measure turnover is calculated by taking the total number of regular teachers who exit a school in a year and dividing that by the total number of regular teachers employed during the year, i.e.:

Exits in this case are the sum of teachers:

  • Moving school: regular teachers who have left a school to move to a different school in the next year; and
  • Moving to Day Relief: teachers who were in the regular teaching workforce in one year and in the day relief teaching workforce in the next year; and
  • Leaving Teaching: teachers who were in the regular teaching workforce in one year but are no longer employed as teachers in the next year.

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.

Data Dimensions Notes

The available dimensions are:

Year

Turnover is measured by looking at regular teachers employed in one year, and seeing where they are in the next year. This variable represents the first year we are considering.

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)

School: Urban/Rural

A grouping based on the size and nature of the area of the school where the employee works their main teaching role for the year.  These groupings are based on Statistics New Zealand definitions:

  • Main urban areas are very large urban areas centred on a city or major urban centre. Main urban areas have a minimum population of 30,000.
  • Secondary urban areas have a population between 10,000 and 29,999 and are centred on the larger regional centres.
  • Minor urban areas are urbanised settlements (outside main and secondary urban areas), centred around smaller towns with a population between 1,000 and 9,999.
  • Rural: Those living in rural settlements or townships, also includes areas with a population between 300 and 999.
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.