Teacher shortage hits $38m snag

Education Minister Chris Hipkins says he has an almost $38 million ‘‘funding hole’’ for dealing with a teacher shortage after the previous Government announced a scheme but didn’t provide the cash.

The Voluntary Bonding Scheme (VBS), which was first introduced in 2009, provides financial incentives of up to $17,500 for graduate teachers to work in hard-to-staff schools.

In August, then education minister Nikki Kaye announced the Ministry of Education would review the VBS and expand it to include all Auckland state and state-integrated schools from the start of next year.

This was designed to reduce teacher shortages in the country’s biggest city after principals reporting almost no applications for advertised roles.

Just this week, Auckland schools told parents they ‘‘have to accept’’ class sizes will go up as schools grapple with ‘‘absolutely dire’’ teacher shortages.

Hipkins revealed this week that while the VBS expansion was announced and campaigned on by National in the lead-up to the election, no Cabinet approval was ever given.

This means the new funding needed – $37.5 million over four years – isn’t available and can’t be found within the Ministry baselines.

But Kaye, National’s education spokeswoman, says it’s not ‘‘uncommon’’ to ‘‘reprioritise from existing baselines’’.

‘‘As I said at the time, the final detail of the initiative was yet to be confirmed. It was the Ministry of Education’s view that the outcome of the final review and detailed policy would likely need to go through Cabinet.’’

The Ministry has since advised Hipkins that Auckland principals are relying on being able to use the expanded VBS as a recruitment incentive next year and expect it to be available.

In the House during Question Time on Wednesday Hipkins said he couldn’t commit to the VBS extension to help Auckland schools at this point because ‘‘there’s a big funding hole where the money should have been appropriated by the previous government’’.