KEY POINTS:
The supply of teachers will continue to be closely monitored by the Ministry of Education, with latest figures showing high school maths and technology teachers are still hard to hire.
Education Minister Chris Carter said yesterday that a predicted shortage of schoolteachers this year had not eventuated.
Some
Auckland primary school principals last year said demand for teachers was the highest in a decade and expected it to rise when lower student-to-staff ratios for new entrants were introduced this term.
Mr Carter said schools and the ministry had worked to find innovative solutions amid a tight labour market.
Among the initiatives was recruiting internationally, easing entry requirements for overseas teachers and running a domestic print and radio ad campaign.
"The introduction of career changer scholarships last year, aimed at attracting skilled people to subject areas such as technology, has had a positive impact on teacher supply," said Mr Carter.
But he said there was more work to do.
A good supply of quality teachers is considered essential to student success.
Frances Nelson, president of the teacher union the New Zealand Educational Institute, said schools had to work hard to fill vacancies and the teacher supply problem was far from over. She said ongoing and longer-term planning was needed to deal with the baby boom of the past year - which will hit schools in 2012.
NZEI is undertaking its own staffing survey on the introduction of the lower student-to-staff ratios in new entrant classes this term.
The ministry's first-term staffing survey of schools showed 17.1 per cent of all secondary school vacancies were in technology teaching, while 16.8 per cent were in maths teaching. Demand was also high in the English, Maori and food and technology areas.
Overall, the rate of vacancies was in line with that of the past fouryears.
The study showed South Auckland had the largest number of readvertised jobs - an indication the positions were "hard to staff" - while Northland had the greatest proportion ofreadvertised jobs.
It said that despite anecdotal reports of schools having troublegetting teachers with New Zealand experience, very few primary principals received no New Zealand applicants answering ads.
TROUBLESPOTS
Highest number of readvertised teaching vacancies were in:
* South Auckland
* Wellington
* Wanganui
Source: Survey of Staffing in NZ at the Beginning of the 2008 School Year
