Eyes on teacher recruitment
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 newly graduated teachers because they need more support.
Recruitment preferences were not driving the teacher shortage, they said. Personal preferences, job stability, and working conditions were considered more likely to affect the workforce.
However, Post Primary Teachers’ Association 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’’, NZ School Trustees’ Association president Lorraine Kerr said.
At the NZ Principals’ Federation conference on Wednesday, Hipkins said schools needed to work with recruitment agencies to 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.
‘‘At the moment, schools have been a little slow to do that,’’ he said. ‘‘If they don’t take on beginning teachers, then the pool of experienced teachers is going to continue to diminish.’’
Recruiting issues ran deeper for some schools. ‘‘A lot of [principals] are saying they’re getting zero applicants,’’ NZ 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, 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’’.
‘‘However, we know there are graduates who are wanting to begin their teaching career who haven’t been able to get a placement straight after finishing their degree,’’ Jones said.
The National Beginner Teacher Project, launched this month, provides 230 grants of $10,000 for mentoring and training costs to schools recruiting beginning teachers, and a similar scheme specific to Auckland will help 62 graduates into their first teaching jobs next year.
Auckland University’s head of initial teacher education, Dr Ngaire Hoben, said most graduates wanted to work in schools. But the use of fixed-term contracts was ‘‘a huge stress’’, she said.
‘‘The pool of experienced teachers is going to continue to diminish.’’ Education Minister
Chris Hipkins