8. Question No. 8—EducationHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 8—Education8. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: How many secondary school teaching positions does he estimate will need to be filled by the start of the 2019 year?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Ministry of Education's analysis estimates that up to 200 secondary teaching positions will need to be filled by the start of the 2019 year. There have been 116 vacancies for secondary school teachers lodged with the Ministry of Education's recruitment agencies. The ministry to date has recruited around 360 secondary teachers ready to be interviewed by schools and 38 positions have been filled.Hon Nikki Kaye: How does he reconcile that figure with the figures released by the New Zealand Secondary Principals Council and the Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand (SPANZ) that indicate there could be more than 1400 secondary school teachers required by the start of next year?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Quite easily: the figures that I quoted are based on payroll data and a fairly rigorous analysis by the Ministry of Education. The figures that are quoted by the Post Primary Teachers Association and SPANZ are based on a survey of schools with only around a third of schools actually responding to the survey. They then used that data to extrapolate out a projection for every school in the country and that's based on the number of vacancies a school have. Now there will always be regular turnover within the teaching profession as teachers move schools for example. The estimate of around just under 200 is the number of extra teachers we will require in addition to those already in the workforce.Hon Nikki Kaye: Can he guarantee that the 565 overseas teachers that the ministry says are ready for schools will resolve teacher shortages given that principals think he's dreaming if he thinks there's only 200 vacancies short?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'm confident that we're doing everything we can. I'm not confident that it's going to resolve all of the issues that have accumulated under nine years of neglect. Had the member been so concerned about teacher shortages perhaps she could have done something about that in the nine years the previous Government allowed that to happen. There was a 40 percent reduction in the number of teacher trainees during her Government's tenure and we are now feeling the effects of that.Hon Nikki Kaye: Can he confirm that he cut voluntary bonding payments in Auckland for teachers and will he take responsibility for the fact that 50 percent of secondary principals surveyed say that it's harder to fill vacancies than in 2017?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In regard to the last part of the question the responsibility for that rests squarely with the previous Minister of Education because the number of teachers in the workforce today are a direct representation of the failure of the previous Government's approach when it comes to initial teacher education and recruiting additional teachers. With regard to the voluntary bonding scheme this Government has increased the number of teachers eligible for the voluntary bonding scheme.