Principals across the country are desperate for staff. If you live on the West Coast (see story p.6 of this issue), in Auckland or Northland, very few, if any teachers are applying for advertised vacancies. So fraught is the staffing situation that recently, Kyle Brewerton, the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association President said, ‘Some schools may just have to send classes home.’
Sending children home occurred in the second school term, in Auckland, this year and principals predict this may happen again. It’s a last resort. It’s what happens after principals and senior management staff have all taken their turn teaching classes, leaving their management duties for after-hours. It’s after teacher-free classes have been split between other classes already at capacity, leaving teachers with 50 per cent extra students. It’s stressful, not sustainable, and wrong.
If we think relief teachers can fill the gaps, we can forget that too. Many are already employed full-time and, in some cases, have come out of retirement to help with the shortages. Some principals say it’s the worst staffing shortage they’ve ever experienced, which begs the question, what has changed?
One indisputable factor is that just across the Tasman, teachers are paid a great deal more than teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Auckland may be ranked the world’s tenth most liveable city by the Global Liveability Index, but the cost of living does not make Auckland a winner with teachers. Basics like housing, travel, and the general cost of living are all rising. Teachers no longer find Auckland an attractive or affordable option. They are exiting in droves. Schools that once attracted over a hundred applications for a basic teaching job, are begging for a single application.
The Ministry tells us that they have freed up visa and registration processes to attract more teachers from overseas and assure us that there are plenty interested in coming to our shores. Principals, however, do not agree that overseas teachers are the answer. They say many such teachers are not an easy fit with our context and culture and much prefer teachers trained in Aotearoa New Zealand. Principals are not prepared to just take anyone to teach their tamariki. They believe in offering all tamariki high quality teaching and learning that is culturally appropriate and te Tiriti based, as is our policy. Schools are expected to not just honour te Tiriti o Waitangi but to enact it.
The key question remains, why do we have insufficient teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand to staff our schools? Is the Ministry doing enough to make teaching an attractive option for our school leavers? It is well known that we are a diverse community (see President’s Pen p.3 in this issue) and subscribe to inclusive practices. These are worthy goals and enthusiastically supported by schools. Whether these goals are well served with support from the Ministry is another question. In any survey of principals, formal or informal, the results consistently show that learning support does not meet growing needs. This is not a new issue. Principals have been highlighting the lack of learning support, in-class support, counsellors, teacher aides and education specialists for years. Inadequate support for learning needs is doubtless a factor in potential teacher trainees choosing alternative careers.
We have a surprisingly large number of small schools in Aotearoa New Zealand, in part because of our geography. Many of those schools are isolated. We once had an expectation that teachers would complete ‘country service’ and in many cases, accommodation was provided to encourage this practice. Today there is no such expectation and there are no incentives for young teachers or indeed principals to teach in or lead our rural schools. Perhaps the Ministry might reconsider incentivizing teachers and principals into these areas by helping with accommodation and paying an incentive allowance to compensate for the costs of living in isolation.
Principals are clear that they prefer to recruit teachers trained in our country. It is not encouraging when we hear that our main Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers – our universities – have made severe cuts to their teacher trainee intakes. Universities may have their own funding disputes with the Government, but this move does not help the teacher shortages in our schools.
Is it time to rethink the way we train teachers? ITE has been a bone of contention with principals in recent years with many criticizing the style and type of teacher training. These issues include the lack of preparation for practical classroom teaching. It is not just about having knowledge of theory and curriculum. It is mostly about how to lead tamariki to learn and understand. It is about how to motivate, enthuse and excite tamariki about learning and providing practical activities for them to engage. Principals will justifiably ask, how can trainees learn about dance, sports, art, and drama in a lecture theatre? These activities can often be the conduit for tamariki to access literacy, mathematics, science, and social science. The current answer is to send trainees to schools on ‘practicum’ experience. Principals would say this is not enough, the training model is not working, and we need a rethink of our ITE provision.
Is relief in sight for the workforce issues in our schools? The answer lies with Ministers and the Ministry and how motivated they are to acknowledge and accept the reasons behind the shortages and commit the funding to address them. In an election year, we would hope that at least one political party will take up the challenge.