An Analysis of Teacher Shortages

Often teacher shortages are reported in the media. But what is a teacher shortage? According to an OIA response dated 5 October 2009, the Ministry of Education says:

Teacher shortages are determined by the number of teacher vacancies advertised and re-advertised in the Gazette.

A definition, albeit blunt, that is generally useful. It seems to be similar to using the unemployment rate as an indicator of a recession – whether or not one has a job is what matters most.

One reason the definition is blunt is that it doesn’t account for the actual number of apparently qualified candidates. Mathematics teachers are deemed in many places to be in short supply. But I asked one principal of an urban Auckland decile 3 school how many candidates would apply for a Mathematics vacancy. The principal told me that about 160 would apply. This is an apparent paradox. One would think that if there were a shortage there would be few or no candidates applying. But the paradox could be easily explained by schools wanting quality over quantity.

If this is the case it raises questions about the quality of teacher education and whether the right things are being done to address teacher recruitment and retention. It would appear that we are not training enough teachers well enough to the satisfaction of schools, and that simply increasing the number of training places will do little to solve the problem and have prohibitive costs.

The subject breakdown is below. The numbers are percentage of number of secondary and composite vacancies as at 7 September 2009.

Rank	Advertised	Readvertised
1	English 14%	English 21%
2	Mathematics 11%	Mathematics 10%
3	Science 7%	Māori 8%
4	PE 6%	Bilingual/Immersion 8%
5	Technology 5%	Home Economics 6%
6	Social Studies 4%	Music 6%
7	Bilingual/Immersion 4%	Science 5%
8	Māori 4%	Technology 5%

I also have some numbers on Auckland vacancies. However, I am unsure of the interpretation, as even assuming great doubling up in subject duties as single vacancies, the total percentage seems too high. They are also not just for the secondary and composite schools. I will seek further clarification.

Rank	Auckland
1	Technology 55%
2	English 38%
3	Mathematics 37%
4	Music 36%
5	Drama 27%
6	Science 24%
7	Health 18%
8	PE 18%

From the first table we can see that English vacancies are common. Its percentage rises for readvertised vacancies. I interpret that as English vacancies are a little difficult to fill than otherwise would be expected. The TeachNZ website states:

Teacher Recruitment Scholarships (Secondary Subjects)

These scholarships aim to encourage more people into studying to become a secondary teacher in these target subjects where there is the highest need: chemistry, home economics, mathematics, physics, technology and Te Reo Māori.

It is interesting English is not on the list, when it had been in the past and has the biggest shortage. Also the subject would be a high priority given literacy requirements for NCEA go up to level 2 as opposed to level 1 for numeracy requirements for university entrance.

Home Economics may seem an odd subject to be in shortage, but the numbers provided justify it – it is not on the top 8 vacancies overall, but appears difficult to fill as it jumps up into the top 8 readvertised vacancies. Te Reo also is difficult to fill, its proportion doubling when readvertised.

A Cursory Glance at the Early History of NCEA

Recently I have received a stack of papers in response to an Official Information Act Request enquiring to the policy underlying the NCEA.

The earliest document I have is dated 8 December 1997. According to this document the NCEA was part of a whole review of the NQF and done in line with a review of tertiary qualifications. Some concerns known today regarding its implementation were known back then, like the use of unit standards and teacher workload.

One snippit of the report that will be popular I suspect is

Moderation is necessary because in qualifications assessment, credibility is the key.

Often in these sorts of documents certain bits of information are blanked out. What seems to be interesting is that somebody has used correction tape over some names. The tape isn’t so opaque after it has been applied so the names underneath are still visible. Which has made me more curious about the names than if nothing had been done at all – I wasn’t looking for a scandal. Normally I believe it is customary to black out the names, then photocopy the document…

One always has to be mindful of the political implications of things. The author of the document notes:

Overall, the draft report provides useful analysis to inform policy decisions. However, there is a significant risk that it could spark controversy. All sides of the debate around qualifications and the NQF could selectively read the report as vindicating their stance, whereas in fact it presents various perspectives and often competing views.

It is therefore desirable that the report be publicly released together with a report on tertiary review submissions, so that a fuller context for decisions is given.