Education Minister Erica Stanford. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The government is celebrating a record increase in teacher numbers.
Education Minister Erica Stanford said a 2.5 percent rise last year included 1128 new primary teachers and 736 in secondary schools - the biggest increase since records began in 2009, while first-time domestic enrolments in Initial Teacher Education rose 6.3 percent from 3400 to 3615.
She said the increase has affected every region.
"Every region has more teachers than it did a year ago, with particularly strong increases in South and West Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington and Canterbury. That's a clear sign our reform of the education system is giving people the confidence to choose teaching as a career."
She pointed to teacher pay rates and the $53 million in government funding set aside in this year's Budget to cover registration fees as ways the government has encouraged the profession to grow.
The registration fee change would not have affected teachers last year, though expectations of it could have encouraged more enrolments.
"From scholarships and onsite training pathways to removing financial barriers like registration fees, we've made it easier for people to take that first step into the classroom, and it's working," Stanford said.
"We're backing our education workforce - from training to registration to the classroom - because when we support teachers, we support better outcomes for every learner," she said.
She noted average total pay was now over $94,000 a year for primary school teachers, and about $101,000 for secondary
For principals, the pay increased to $150,000 for primary and $200,000 for secondary, she said.
RNZ in April reported the overseas enrolments boosted student teacher numbers after years of low enrolment created a workforce crisis.
Rise in training rates
Stanford said training rates were also up, with provisional data showing the numbers in Initial Teacher Education had increased 27 percent on last year.
"Primary is up 32 percent, secondary up 21, and ECE up 19 percent, so that's huge. Last year, for example, the student enrolments rose by 6.3 percent so this year already, we've seen quite a big lift - even if it is provisional numbers, it's really, really encouraging.
"If we want to transform our education system and make sure that young people are at curriculum and getting great qualifications, the most important thing we can do is have great teachers in front of them.
"That's the single thing that has the biggest impact on a child's education is the quality of the teacher, and so getting more teachers through initial teacher education and more quality teachers through will have a huge impact."
Stanford told RNZ the main reason for the increase was the government's reforms towards a world-leading education system.
"It's what we're creating, and people want to be a part of this, and I know that teachers are appreciating all of the resource and the professional learning and development and the brand new curriculum and all of the resources that we're putting into the sector," she said.
"We for example last year funded teacher certification and fees, and that brought back about 500 teachers back into the sector alone; we've created more on-site training places, we've got scholarships, there's all sorts of things."
Pay rates probably had an effect as well, she said, "and we've also committed to continue to pay teachers more".
"When you ask people what the average teacher salary is, they always assume it's a lot lower than it actually is and so while teachers work extraordinarily hard, they go above and beyond every single day, those remuneration rates have been steadily increasing, especially in the last six years."
The increase in teacher numbers was "hugely important", she said - and seeing the shortage in previous years had prompted her to push for better data collection.
"We haven't had great data from the ministry over the years. I think last year was a real time for me to realize that the data wasn't great, and so we've asked for much better data broken down by region, so we can see where the need is, and it's a lot more accurate than it used to be.
"I can't reveal the details about it because it's all very operational, but the way that they're collecting the data is better ... it's easier for them, for us, to target some of those scholarships or on site training packages to those regions that need it the most."
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