An east Auckland school principal says the country is suffering from a chronic shortage of teachers and he doesn’t believe the coalition Government understands the scale of the problem.
Howick College principal Dale Burden says the shortage “has been going on for 20 years”.
“It’s the same problem but it’s just got worse. So it started off and it was just a few subjects like technology, maths, and physics, and now it’s everything.
“You can’t get English teachers and you can’t get P.E. teachers.”
Burden says the Government needs to “think hard” about issues such as teacher training, which he believes needs to be reviewed.
“Why we’ve got a whole lot of providers competing is beyond me. It’s crazy.
“That collaborative model amongst the universities would be better, and taking teacher training out of universities would be another.”
He says Howick College has lost teachers to Australia.
One of his previous roles in the sector was in Melbourne so he’s speaking from experience when he explains why teachers are lured across the Tasman.
“The conditions are significantly superior. To start, the cost of living is much less, even in a place like Melbourne, and the salaries are about 20 per cent higher.
“The state system classes are capped at 26 [pupils].
“Personally I don’t think teachers earn enough currently because they’re disappearing to Australia, where there’s a shortage in places like Melbourne.
“And you’ve got Australian recruitment agencies regularly recruiting for teachers in New Zealand.”
He says what his school can do to keep its teachers is make the environment as good as possible “with the limited amount of resource we have”.
“So it’s about retention as opposed to recruitment. You’ve got to have someone to recruit.
“Apart from the numbers of trainees, which are lower than what needs to be, the only way we fill it is from overseas, if we’re lucky, or from another school.”
Burden say he doesn’t think the Government understands the scale of the problem.
“They didn’t understand it 20 years ago and they don’t understand it now.
“We have a big professional development programme with a lot of coaching, but we’ve been really lucky as we’re one of the schools teachers want to come to.
“I think it’s because of the location, the kids, the staff, of how happy people who work here are and the conditions of work are good. However not all schools are like that.”
The Post Primary Teachers’ Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA) says the secondary teacher shortage continues to be at “crisis point”.
“There are vacancies in many subject areas and in many geographical areas.
“Principals are cancelling subjects for lack of trained and qualified secondary teaching specialists, many teachers are teaching outside their area of subject qualification, and there’s major pressure on the availability of relief teachers.”
The organisation says the 2024 Secondary School Staffing Survey Report shows a “continuing problem with secondary teacher recruitment”.
“There are not enough new teachers in subjects like physics and chemistry, technology, and mathematics.
“There are also significant shortages in subjects like business, Te Reo Māori, agriculture, horticulture and a number of languages.”
Education Minister Erica Stanford recently said the Government was investing almost $53 million over four years in Budget 2024 to boost the number of school teachers by 1500.
“We’re being proactive in addressing the forecast future need for teachers, with recent estimates showing up to 680 more secondary teachers could be needed within the next three years.
“[This] investment in training, recruitment and development will help us to meet that demand by growing the domestic and overseas pipeline of teachers.”
