Shortage of specialist teachers ‘hits kids’

Almost half of secondary school students are being taught by teachers who don’t specialise in the subjects they’re teaching, a report has found.

Of 162 schools surveyed, 40 per cent of secondary school principals said they could not find teachers to fill specialist roles. About a third of advertised teaching jobs had no suitable applicants.

Teacher recruitment and retention at schools across the country has been blamed.

But Education Minister Chris Hipkins said a teacher supply issue did not mean secondary students would not receive satisfactory teaching.

He said yesterday that schools were given recruitment support and additional funding to help them manage but admitted there were not enough teachers ‘‘in the right place with the right skills’’.

‘‘We know that we’re going to have to do a lot more.’’

There was no overnight solution, he said.

‘‘It does take a couple of years to work our way through that, but it can be done and that’s what we’ll absolutely be looking to do.’’

The report said 20 per cent of schools had cancelled classes or adopted distance learning techniques to fill the gap.

Maths, English and science classes were most frequently covered by teachers trained in physical education, primary and social studies.

Hipkins said ‘‘creative timetabling’’ meant those teachers often taught students at junior levels to leave specialist teachers to focus on senior classes.

Schools that could not find teachers were accessing resources through Te Kura, The Correspondence School, he said. It’s a short-term solution. Of the teachers that had left the profession in the past year, 40 per cent were retiring and 8 per cent of schools did not have relief teaches, the report said.

‘‘Principals are more negative about the recruitment and retention of teachers than they have been since the end of the 1990s.’’

Secondary Principals’ Council chairman James Morris said the survey highlighted a worsening trend. Teacher shortages had the biggest impact on students’ learning and risked becoming a ‘‘hidden problem’’, he said.

‘‘The biggest impact on students doing well is having a quality teacher in front of them.’’

National’s education spokeswoman Nikki Kaye said a teacher shortage had compounded over successive governments.

She said the only way forward was a long-term plan that covered salary, teacher training, graduate trends, incentives and workload.

But there needed to be greater investments in the short term too, she said.

The report on the secondary school principals survey was released this week by the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA).