A “dire shortage” of teachers has forced some Bay of Plenty high school principals to hire “unqualified” educators and one to cancel a class.
Those teachers held a Limited Authority to Teach (LAT), which the Teaching Council said enabled a person without a teaching qualification to teach in positions requiring specialist or hard-to-find skills.
It comes as teachers begin a new round of strikes, and after a Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) annual staffing survey found 48 per cent of 127 secondary principals nationwide had to appoint “untrained or unqualified” teachers because they could not find qualified or trained staff.
The Ministry of Education would not comment on the survey but said some subjects had long been hard to staff and nationally, the teaching workforce was in a “good position”.
The PPTA said a person cannot teach in a state school unless they were trained and qualified or had an LAT.
Of the principals surveyed, 30 per cent said they had to cancel or transfer classes because they could not find a specialist teacher - the highest proportion since the survey series began in 1996.
The report also says the number of applications per teaching position was the “lowest on record”, while one-third of advertised jobs could not be filled.
Secondary and area school teachers were participating in rolling strikes this week as negotiations continue.
The strikes were going ahead despite the latest offer from the Ministry of Education, which the PPTA said sat below the cost of living increase. The ministry said the offer upped the maximum base salary for all teachers by 11.11 per cent to $100,000 by December 2024, up from $96,000 in its October offer.
Tauranga Boys’ College principal Andrew Turner said since starting in the role last year, he had employed “three or four” staff who did not hold a teaching qualification.
The staff all held an LAT, he said.
While it was concerning there were not enough teachers, Turner said: “We have got to run our school”.
A technology teaching vacancy, advertised three times since the start of the year, had only just been filled, he said.
The school had also struggled to employ a physical education teacher, with only two of the nine applicants based in New Zealand.
In his view: “Teachers don’t want to be in a position like our health sector, where it is completely dire. The concern is we are losing people.”
Turner said he believed reasons for teachers leaving the profession included increased pressure and moving to Australia for better pay.
In the survey, 91 per cent of principals said they had teachers who left the secondary teaching workforce between October and March, with retirement and career change the most common reasons given.
PPTA Western Bay of Plenty regional chairwoman Julie Secker described the report findings as “very concerning”, believing it showed the secondary teacher shortage was becoming “more deep-seated and widespread”.
The report said on average, one in every four principals had cancelled classes.
“Having to cancel classes because you don’t have a teacher is an absolute last resort, and to see that this is happening increasingly often is alarming,” Secker said.
Tauranga Girls’ College principal Tara Kanji said the school had to advertise jobs multiple times recently before they were filled.
“This year is the worst, given that we have always been fully staffed and have always attracted a strong number of applicants.”
It was “struggling to fill” a refreshment leave position listed three times and another teaching role, she said.
The majority of applicants were based overseas and did not have experience teaching NCEA or the New Zealand curriculum, she said.
The report said the average number of New Zealand-trained applicants per classroom position was 1.6, compared to 3.4 in 2019, and 9.9 10 years ago.
The school could access a great pool of relief teachers, but they, too, were “being stretched”, Kanji said.
When they could not find relief cover, Kanji said staff had to double up classes or have senior students work “independently” on set tasks.
“We check in on them,” she said.
“This is never ideal, but something we all had to do during the height of Covid too.”
Ōtūmoetai College’s Russell Gordon said over the past 12 years he had noticed a “reduction” of teachers applying for jobs in Tauranga.
“It used to be that this was the place to come, but I think we are now finding that housing and the cost of living are having a significant impact on people choosing where it is that they want to apply for work.”
Gordon said the school was fully staffed but had previously struggled to fill specialist mathematics and science roles - particularly mid-year appointments.
Ensuring the school had enough suitable staff was a “balancing act” which was becoming “more and more difficult” to manage, he said.
In Rotorua, John Paul College principal Justin Harper there had been “significant challenges” in finding “suitable, qualified” staff to fill teaching vacancies.
Harper said in his view, there was a “dire shortage” of secondary teachers in New Zealand.
A physical education class at the school had been cancelled due to the school not being able to find a specialist teacher to replace one who resigned more than three months ago.
Rotorua Girls’ High School principal Sarah Davis said the school had previously employed a staff member with relevant subject matter experience who held an LAT and was undergoing teacher training while working at the school.
Davis said 30 teachers from outside of New Zealand had applied for two vacancies listed recently. No NZ-based teachers applied for either of the roles.
This year, the school hired two overseas teachers, with one yet to arrive as their visa had not been approved.
Ministry of Education general manager of employment relations Mark Williamson was unable to comment on the PPTA report.
He said, however, the ministry’s supply and demand modelling suggested the nationwide teaching workforce was in a “good position” to start the year.
Projections released in December estimated at the secondary level, supply was “expected to meet demand more closely in 2023″.
“We acknowledge that at a local level, some schools have challenges finding the right teachers for their school, particularly in subjects such as Stem and te reo Māori, where there have been long-standing systematic supply challenges.”
Williamson said in September Cabinet allocated $23.626 million to grow the workforce by up to 177 domestic teachers and 760 international teachers. This investment was “more heavily weighted” towards secondary teachers, he said.
He also said interest from overseas teachers remained high, with more than 1700 work and resident visas approved between January 2022 and April 2023.
In that period, more than 1000 overseas teachers arrived in New Zealand, including returning Kiwis and visa holders.
Two thousand giant snails are kept in fridges as an insurance policy by the DoC.