The country’s teacher shortage led a large east Auckland school to look to Asia to fill a particular role as there were no suitable applicants in New Zealand.
Pakuranga College principal Billy Merchant says the problem is “significant”.
He says during Covid when no one could leave the country, teacher numbers were sufficient, but now teachers are leaving New Zealand in search of higher salaries.
“For one of our most recent appointments we’ve had to go to the Philippines and bring a teacher over from there because there are no teachers in New Zealand who were available for the position that we needed filling. It is a bit of a crisis.”
Merchant says the number of people training to be teachers in New Zealand is falling but his school has a relationship with the University of Waikato which is proving successful.
“It’s a programme where people who already have a degree, they might want a career change or be thinking ‘how do I get to become a qualified teacher’ but they can’t afford to give up work, this allows them to come into our school for a year and they learn and teach on the job.
“The Ministry of Education will pay their fees and there’s also a stipend or monetary reward for that teacher while they study.
“We had five people on that programme last year and we’ve employed all five of them this year.”
Merchant says while the school isn’t currently short of teachers, that could change quickly.
“We have about 142 teachers so we’re fully staffed, but within a school this size, within three or four months and couple of resignations or a maternity leave to fill, we could be in a different situation.
“We might have an advert that would go in [for a teacher vacancy] and back in the day we’d probably have 30 to 40 applicants, and from that there could be at least eight or 10 who you’re genuinely interested in.
“Whereas now you’ve got very slim pickings with very few teachers applying. Lots of them are from overseas and aren’t yet qualified or registered in New Zealand.”
Ministry of Education general manager, education workforce, Jolanda Meijer, says the number of teachers in New Zealand has been steadily increasing over the past several years.
“However, some regions and subjects still face challenges in finding the right teachers.
“In Budget 2024, an additional $53 million was invested over the next four years to grow the supply of qualified teachers by an additional 1,500.”
Meijer says the ministry has numerous initiatives to attract and support people to enter the teaching profession, to attract teachers from overseas, and to retain teachers.
They include a school onsite training programme, scholarships, a voluntary bonding scheme, an Initial Teacher Education course-finder tool, changes to immigration settings, and the BeTTER Jobs Programme, which offers 130 places annually that connect beginning and returning teachers with schools facing recruitment or retention challenges.
