Minister must be laser-focused on solving worsening secondary teacher shortages

“The teacher demand and supply report, released by the Ministry of Education today, confirms the concerns we expressed at the start of the school year – that we are more than 700 secondary teachers short,” says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president.

“At the time, the Minister dismissed our concerns, claiming that this report would give the true picture. She now needs to front up and explain why she hasn’t given secondary teacher shortages the ‘laser’ treatment that she claims to be giving to other parts of her portfolio.”

Today’s report shows that the secondary teacher shortage is worsening. Last year, the Ministry projected a shortfall of 550 secondary teachers for this year.  The projection for 2026 has now been revised upwards to a shortfall of 710 teachers.

Last year, the Ministry predicted the2026 shortfall would ease in 2027 to a shortfall of 330. This has also been revised upwards to a 2027 shortfall of 510.

“This worsening shortage shows the Minister is failing to ensure there are sufficient number of secondary teachers in our schools, at the same time as she is making once in a generation changes to secondary education. 

“The shortage means that every day, thousands of students are being short-changed because of the lack of subject specialist teachers. Teachers who know their subject inside out and enable students to be challenged and grow in their knowledge and skills. It also means that teachers are having to give up time that could be used for getting their heads around curriculum changes, for instance, to take other classes because vacancies cannot be filled.

“Having a specialist teacher in every subject is as basic as it gets in secondary education – every student deserves this. It is fundamental to providing a quality education. The Minister claims she’s all about getting the basics right. It doesn’t get more basic than having a teacher in front of the class – what has she done to get this right?

“Importing teachers from overseas and making it easier for unqualified and unregistered people to teach are not viable, sustainable solutions – particularly given the huge changes to curriculum and secondary qualifications that we are facing.

“Right now, it feels like we are losing far more teachers than we are recruiting. Thousands are heading to better paid teaching jobs in Australia while others are leaving for highly paid non-teaching jobs here where they are not subject to such relentless change, upheaval and uncertainty. The current debacle with the failure to deliver resources for the new English and Maths curriculum is just one example of the nightmare that teachers are having to navigate their way through at the moment.

“The secondary teacher shortage is unacceptable. We urge the Minister to apply her ‘laser focus’ and come up with some meaningful and lasting solutions."