‘Huge stress’ on new teachers
One in five teacher training graduates don’t end up working in schools – but it’s not because schools don’t want them, education professionals say.
Key figures in education have reacted to Education Minister Chris Hipkins’ comments that schools were reluctant to hire beginning teachers because they needed more support.
Recruitment preferences were not driving New Zealand’s teacher shortage, they said. Personal preferences, job stability, and working conditions were considered more likely to affect the workforce.
However, Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) president Jack Boyle said schools had a duty of care ‘‘that they don’t just put someone who is upright and breathing in front of students’’.
Hipkins’ comments were not perceived as critical: ‘‘[He was] highlighting most of what everybody knows’’, New Zealand School Trustees’ Association president Lorraine Kerr said.
At the New Zealand Principals’ Federation annual conference on Wednesday, Hipkins said schools needed to work with recruitment agencies to identify and fill vacancies.
‘‘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.
‘‘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.’’
Recruiting issues ran deeper for some schools. ‘‘A lot of [principals] are saying they’re getting zero applicants,’’ New Zealand Educational Institute president Lynda Stuart said.
Trainee teacher numbers have dropped 40 per cent in recent years. Hipkins referenced Ministry of Education data that showed four in five 2015 teaching graduates appeared on a school’s payroll within a year.
Ministry deputy secretary Craig Jones said some trainee teachers, like all university graduates, later decided against entering their chosen profession for many reasons. Sector experts said these included travel, further study, maternity leave, or simply deciding ‘‘it’s not for them’’.