Education Minister announces $10.5 million funding as part of plan to address teacher shortage

October 14, 2018

Today the Education Minister announced an extra $10.5 million to help stem the current crisis.

New plans to address the teacher shortage will include an extra $10.5 million in funding and efforts to attract over 850 additional teachers, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today.

The Ministry of Education says that 650 extra primary teachers and 200 extra secondary teachers will be needed in 2019 to meet the rising level of demand due to growing numbers of students in schools.

"We know that some schools and parents, particularly in the Auckland area but also in pockets around the country, are concerned that not enough teachers are coming into the system, and we are determined to pull out all the stops to meet next year’s projected shortfall," Mr Hipkins said.

"We're committing an extra $10.5 million, on top of the $29.5 million already announced since late last year, to ramp up teacher recruitment initiatives and increase funding for schools - bringing funding to $40 million this year to fill vacancies."

The new package also includes the introduction of a new grant to encourage schools to employ more teaching graduates.  At present, only 80 per cent of graduates get a teaching job when they finish training.

Chris Hipkins says increasing the employment of newly graduated teachers is important and the grant will support schools to mentor beginning teachers, before they take their own classes.

The overseas recruitment target has also been increased for 2019 from 400 up to 900.

"We're continuing to focus on bringing New Zealand-trained teachers home, while also looking for other teachers from countries with qualifications similar to ours... …and to improve the support available to overseas-trained teachers."

The Plan

- Hire more than 850 additional teachers

- Extra $10.5 million in funding

- Up to 230 grants of $10,000 for schools to get more graduate teachers into classrooms

- Over 6,000 overseas-based teachers targeted in new campaign

- $5 million more available for overseas relocation grants and finder’s fees

- Easier access to up to $3,000 per teacher finder’s fee to help schools offset recruitment costs


SHARE ME

More Stories