Government unveils $40k teacher bonding scheme for rural and hard‑to‑staff schools

The Government is launching a new incentive to support schools that are struggling to recruit qualified teachers.

This morning, Education Minister Erica Stanford said under the new Teacher Bonding Scheme, teachers could receive as much as $40,000 if they stay at a participating school for five years.

The scheme will begin in October, with an initial payment of $5000, increasing each year to a final lump sum of $11,000 in the fifth year.

Stanford told Ryan Bridge on Herald NOW the new package would be bigger and more flexible than previous offerings.

“We’ve done a huge amount of work to get teachers into training, record levels, and into the classroom, but it can be quite lumpy, especially for our small, rural, and isolated schools,” she said.

There will be 185 fulltime places a year, with one place allocated on a first-come-first-served basis to eligible schools.

The initiative would replace the Voluntary Bonding Scheme (VBS) and the BeTTER Jobs Programme, which was available to new teachers and capped at a total of $17,500 over five years.

Stanford said the new scheme will also be less restrictive than the VBS, doing away with the old eligibility criteria.

“Not only is it new teachers, but it could be highly experienced teachers too, so those small and rural schools who need access to an expert teacher can now use this scheme,” she said.

While Stanford couldn’t recall the exact cost of the programme, she said it will replace all of the existing packages.

“We’re not using any new money. It’s existing money, things we’re closing down because they’re not working and putting them into a new scheme.”

Labour’s Priyanka Radhakrishnan also appeared on the Herald NOW panel and gave her live response to the announcement.

“We know that teachers have been saying there aren’t enough teachers,” she said.

“It’s a step in the right direction, but I don’t think it’s enough.”

The Government previously announced a list of revised school subjects yesterday in a continuing shake-up of the education system.

Subjects that will be available from Term 1 next year include civics, politics and philosophy; media, journalism and communications; te mātai i te Ao Māori; Pacific studies; and music technology.