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Teacher shortage looms as schools struggle to recruit

Teacher shortage news

Schools across New Zealand are facing a critical teacher shortage, exacerbated by the arrival of nearly 40,000 children of foreign workers and an increase in classroom release time for teachers in 2024.

While overseas-trained teacher applications have risen, principals say the need for locally trained graduates is at a crisis point, citing challenges with retention and quality.

Southland’s schools, along with others nationwide, report unfilled positions even late in the academic year, forcing principals to tap informal networks and consider unconventional staffing solutions. The shortage is fuelled by declining numbers of teacher graduates, late resignations, and a waning interest in teaching among school leavers, attributed in part to a negative public perception of the profession.

The situation is particularly dire for schools in remote areas and for specialised roles like food technology. Secondary schools are experiencing growing enrolments due to immigration, further stretching teacher demand. Despite a $53 million boost in the government’s May Budget for teacher education and recruitment, the sector struggles to attract and retain educators. A chaotic start to the 2025 school year in January is predicted, as vacancies remain unfilled and schools brace for last-minute staffing challenges.

Principals Federation president Leanne Otene told state media, “What I’m being told by principals is that the number of applicants is substantially less than in any previous year.

“It’s been dwindling for some time because we’re not training as many teachers anymore and we don’t have as many graduates as we have had in the past.”

Image credit: Yunus Tug

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6 COMMENTS

  1. After reading the book titled ‘SWIMMING IN THE CESSPOOL’, who in their right mind would want to be a teacher???
    This is only one of the many reasons why we homeschooled our now-adult children…
    & BTW- Erica Stanford was made aware of that book, written by a former teacher who taught at Dannevirke High School, and was a retired USAF Colonel from the U.S..
    Here’s the textual flow chart of ‘education’;
    PRE-SCHOOL / DISCIPLINARY OVERSIGHT= profiling, and introductions to discrimination and the start of being victimised by Basic Pre-School Bullying;
    PRIMARY SCHOOL / INSTITUTIONAL DETAINMENT=targeting of certain children, and favouring others from ‘influential families’ colonial provincial-style ie Masonic, PTB, with encouragements to excel in rugby, sports and Darwinistic Bullying 101 ‘Survival of the Fittest’ encouraged by teachers & staff;
    MIDDLE SCHOOL / PRE-PRISON ENVIRONMENT= the targeting of certain children continues as above and is more sophisticated. Bulling 202 encompassing psycho-social behaviours ie secondary psychopathy, primary sociopathy, and passive-aggressive behaviours;
    HIGH SCHOOL / PRE-PRISON PIPELINE=targeting continues, but this time with the changing of NCEA / NZQA Scores which are adjusted down from those students who scored high on the testing but who are targeted, not ‘in the know’, and are from economically-challenged (deliberately) families, yet maintained high academic scores thoughout the years of schooling. Advanced Bullying is the norm with Globalist and Politically-Correct ideas enforced thru bullying, punishments, threats of failure, with free-thinking being banned. This is also a prerequisite for;
    PRISON PIPELINE= removing those from society who have reacted to being targeted, disenfranchised, cheated out of qualified jobs, and punished for being ‘anti-social’ and reflecting on their lives as youths who were deliberately cheated out of fairness and justice. The end result of a failed ‘ Mandatory Education System’ that is institutionalised mind control and conformity at all cost, enforced with punishments and deprivations.
    DID I COVER EVERYTHING????

    • “Swimming in the Cesspool” is a gharstly document of how NZ school system works. It works for the system, but not for the children. It is a dumbing down machine in order to ‘edjucate’ the people of Godzone to be even more compliant and useful as cattle for the system. And -in the end- it is all geared to run New Zealand as a productive farm for the international bankster cabal, of which John Key was a key player with him making his millions by betting against the NZ dollar.
      One thing you left out (if I may): the school system is full of ‘wowmen’. One can find hardly any male teachers aymore because of feminist subversion and gender bias.
      Add to that that every fourth child in New Zealand grows up without a father, them being sidelined via custody battles purely for the free money socialism in cohort with the NZ family court throws at ‘mothers’.
      It is a total disgrace.

  2. Another debacle that’s not only down to this incompetent nasty National led government but also the last abomination under Liebour. I know of at least one very seasoned and capable teacher who walked away. She refused to be coerced into taking the unsafe and ineffective jab and who can blame her. And its not as if there are not highly lucrative opportunities for teachers, in the private sector. Again I know of two teachers who now earn a ton of cash as corporate trainers. One moved to OZ for a huge pay hike.

    In China by contrast, teachers reputations have soared. They are paid well above average, get all sorts of perks and even have their own “teachers day.” At least some of this could be duplicated here but it requires government who put New Zealanders interests first and as we keep seeing, that’s simply not the case.

  3. Let’s hope this Government doesn’t encourage 3000 plus to be trained only to find there is a surplus of trained individuals who cannot secure work….eg: look at the surplus of trained Nurses now needing to head overseas. An appalling situation with lessons to learn!

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