Ogilvy Bernie: General Debates 
Ogilvy Bernie: General Debates 
[Volume:606;Page:3577] 
BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to address an education issue as well and in particular with regard to secondary teachers. I point out firstly that there is a shortage of secondary teachers and everyone knows that for this year it will not go away. Schools were short by 388 teachers in January of this year and now just 3 weeks into the school term there are still 199 actual vacancies and counting to be filled according to last week’s  
Education Gazette 
. However the current difficulties have a much longer gestation. On the one hand the current secondary school workforce is greying. The average age of secondary teachers is now 49 and I believe increasing each year. On the other hand the number of trainees coming through colleges of education does not make for encouraging reading either. From 1999 to 2001 which is the latest period for which data is available the number of secondary trainee enrolments at the Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin colleges of education declined by 10.5 percent. What is worse the proportion of those who graduate slid from 76 percent to 66 percent in that 3-year period. As yet we do not have any comparable figures for the last 2 years.  
In the meantime according to claims by the Secondary Principals Association of New Zealand and backed up by a separate survey by the Post Primary Teachers Association the upshot of the shortage is that schools have been forced to hire teachers of uncertain quality. One principal stated: “I have hired people I don’t feel entirely comfortable with. They might work out.” As reported in yesterday’s  
Dominion Post 
 teachers and principals have grave concerns about the quality of teacher trainees. Some graduates who are applying for teaching positions are sending in CVs so badly written that pupils would be failed for presenting them.  
What is not clear is whether these are fresh graduates coming through the colleges of education or whether the quality issues relate to the large number of teachers being recruited from overseas. The problem of course with teachers trained overseas is that they are not sufficiently acculturated in terms of education in New Zealand. For example a couple of things I have just picked up is that teachers from the UK do not prepare their own resources as New Zealand teachers do and teachers from India leave all their marking to their deputy principal.  
The nature of the curriculum is another matter. For example one teacher from the United Kingdom taught a social studies class about the treaty of Wanganui for a whole term before anyone noticed. We need to ensure that teachers trained overseas are fully prepared for work in New Zealand.  
Even if we get enough quality trainees through the system there is still a major problem of retention particularly for new teachers. The figures show that after 3 years of teaching 38 percent of new teachers leave their profession. So where are the teachers going? A Post Primary Teachers Association survey released last December said that 27 percent of the teachers who resigned in term four last year went overseas and 39 percent went to non-teaching jobs. United Future believes that the problem of recruiting and retaining teachers goes far beyond the pay issue which has now been temporarily resolved. Indeed there are some concerns that graduates with bachelor degrees may perceive teaching to be a great option for an extra year’s training given the new pay scale and misperceptions about the holidays that teachers get without necessarily viewing it as a vocation. Instead United Future is committed to improving perceptions of the teaching profession enforcing standards rewarding excellence and building the mana of teachers in our community. I said last week that we need to restore education to its true dignity and restore to our teachers the honour due to them. They are our trustees who pass on our traditions and virtues from one generation to another.