Initiatives to increase teacher supply show impact

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EMBARGOED until 9.30am, 4 May 2009

Initiatives to increase teacher supply showing impact

A recent survey of all school shows that the staffing of traditionally hard to fill subjects is now considerably easier thanks to a raft of initiatives from the Ministry of Education (MOE).

Mathematics and statistics and technology – two of the most difficult subjects to staff – have considerably lower vacancies than previous years. The number of vacancies in technology dropped from 17.4 percent to 14.4 percent and from 16.8 percent to 10.2 percent for mathematics and statistics.

Lynne Whitney, Senior Manager Research at the MOE said, overall, most New Zealand schools started off the year with 99 percent of their entitlement positions filled – a slightly higher number than last year. Entitlement positions are those that are funded by the Ministry of Education.

The good results in the survey were no coincidence. Over the past few years the MOE has been offering a range of TeachNZ Scholarships and initiatives to encourage teachers to return to the profession and train and work in hard to staff subjects and areas.

Specific initiatives include allowances for those training in hard to fill subjects, loan support for teachers of particular subjects and in hard to fill geographical areas, relocation grants for moving internationally and nationally, returning to teaching allowances and free retraining for former secondary teachers.

Numbers of vacancies in secondary schools sat at 148.9 at the beginning of the school year (a slight drop on last year), while entitlement vacancies in primary schools stayed the same as the previous year at 180.7.

The number of vacancies that have had to be re-advertised has remained largely the same. There were 140.8 positions re-advertised – representing just 0.3 percent of all entitlement positions.

All school principals are surveyed on their teacher supply every year on the first day of the school year. The response rate is always high with 95 percent of schools responding this year.

ENDS

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