With schools in Te Tai Tokerau receiving no applicants for advertised positions, and Orewa College on the Hibiscus Coast considering rostering students to learn at home, the shortage is crippling schools around the motu.
Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced in an email to principals last Friday, plans to provide ‘limited authorities to teach’ to encourage unqualified teachers and teachers who no longer hold registration, to work as relief teachers in schools.
The Government will also cover registration fees, making it cheaper and easier for individuals to get into the classroom.
“The problem we’ve got, is there’s a whole lot of great ex-teachers out there who have recently retired or left to have a baby, who we want to get back in the classroom, and that’s what these changes are all about,” Stanford said in an interview with Newstalk ZB.
PPTA Te Wehengarua president Chris Abercrombie has called the response ad hoc, and said it is evidence of a systemic failure to recognise and value teaching, and ensure that teachers are retained and new teachers are attracted to the profession.
“She is essentially looking to flood classrooms with unregistered relievers as the teaching shortage bites,” he said in a statement.
“Very few of these relievers will be across the new requirements for the implementation of level 1 NCEA, or the new English and Maths curriculum or structured literacy delivery.
“Some teachers without practising certificates won’t have taught for well over three years,” he added.
Stanford has said she’s surprised by the backlash.
“I can’t magic up teachers overnight, it takes three, four years to train them,” she said.
“This is a short-term solution, while we work with the Teaching Council on a longer-term solution.”
Abercrombie said the Government needs to support the teaching profession with adequate resourcing of new NCEA requirements, better wrap around services for students who need them, and improved pay and working conditions for teachers.
“Rather than responding to this crisis with a set of ad hoc measures, the Government needs to urgently create a workforce strategy for the teaching workforce.
“The cold, hard fact of the matter is that there are thousands of highly skilled and experienced former teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand today who would come back to school next week if the salary and conditions were attractive,” he said.
