Schools told: ‘get recruiting’

With the country in the midst of a teacher shortage, Education Minister Chris Hipkins is criticising schools for being too slow to recruit.

Another strike looms for primary schools, with union members having until last night to vote over possible industrial action.

The Government has been criticised for not doing enough to ease the workloads of teachers and principals, with teacher shortages tipped as a major factor. However, Hipkins said just one in five graduate teachers were hired to work in New Zealand schools. Speaking at the New Zealand Principals’ Federation annual conference in Wellington on Wednesday, Hipkins said there was hesitation among school leaders to employ new teachers because they required extra support.

There had also been a 40 per cent reduction in trainees.

‘‘If they don’t take on beginning teachers, then the pool of experienced teachers is going to continue to diminish, so we actually do need schools to step up.’’

The Government recently pledged to find at least 400 overseas teachers for the 2019 academic year.

However, data out of the Ministry of Education, released last week, showed there would be a shortage of 650 primary teachers in 2019 and a further 170 needed to meet demand in secondary schools for the same year.

Since the announcement earlier this month, 115 teachers had been processed to start work, Hipkins said.

‘‘But we need schools to be working with recruitment agents to identify the vacancies for them to fill. It’s no good schools saying: we’ve got all these vacancies that we can’t fill. They actually need to be alerting the appropriate people who can help fill them.

‘‘At the moment, schools have been a little slow to do that.’’

Hipkins was scathing of employers who gave fixed-term contracts over permanent teaching positions because it meant new teachers were forced to bounce between schools.

He said graduate teachers needed stable employment so they could focus on the start of their careers, not where they would be next term.

‘‘It’s something that principals have been doing for a long time.

‘‘It’s something they shouldn’t be doing, and it’s certainly something that the Government takes a pretty dim view of.’’

National Party education spokesperson Nikki Kaye criticised the Government this week for ‘‘wasting time’’ instead of offering the sector more money. ‘‘The costings show the secondary school offer is approximately $360 million over four years. To [put] this into perspective, it is equivalent to approximately 13 per cent of the Government’s package for tertiary students’’, she said.

However, Hipkins said teachers had ‘‘absolutely’’ received comparable offers with other sectors.

‘‘We actually do need schools to step up.’’ Education Minister

Chris Hipkins