Teacher Vacancy Survey 2002: Results for Secondary and Composite Schools

Key points

- The survey achieved an excellent response rate of 99.2 percent . Only three secondary schools did not respond.

- Sixty-two percent of all secondary and composite schools recorded no entitlement staffing vacancies at the beginning of the 2002 school year.

- Vacancies increased from 170.7 FTTE vacancies in 2001 to 237.9 FTTE vacancies in 2002. These vacancies represented 1.5% of all entitlement positions, up from 1.1% in 2001.

- In 2002, re-advertised vacancies (referred to as “hard to staff’ positions) also increased from 0.4 percent of all entitlement positions in 2001 to 0.7 percent in 2002.

- Re-advertised positions represented 43 percent of all vacancies, up from 35% in 2001.

- As found in previous years, vacancies were more likely to be in schools with the largest concentrations of Maori students and in schools in lower socio-economic areas (deciles 1-3 schools) than in other schools. Vacancies and re-advertised vacancies were also greater in minor urban and rural areas.

- Vacancies and re-advertised vacancies were highest in the areas covered by the Whangarei (2.6% and 1.3% respectively), Invercargill (2.3%, 1.1%) and Manukau (2.3%, 1.0%) Ministry of Education Local Offices. Schools in the Auckland (1.6%), Rotorua (1.6%) and Wellington (1.6%) areas also recorded vacancy levels slightly higher than the overall proportion of vacancies recorded nationally (1.5%).

- Most vacancies were recorded in the sciences (13% of all vacancies in 2002), English (13%), management (12%), technology (12%) and mathematics (12%). Vacancies in management and English increased this year, up from 9% in 2001.

- Schools indicated that over half (58%) of their recorded vacancies were being covered by trained relief staff who were employed for 10 weeks or less (a similar result to previous years). However, schools were utilising their departing staff to cover vacancies to a greater extent this year (17%) than previously (10% in 2001).

- In 2002, three-quarters (74%) of secondary schools employed at least one first year beginning teacher. There was a total of 891 first year beginning teachers in secondary schools this year compared with 733 in 2001.

Points to Note

- The results from secondary and composite schools have been combined throughout this report.

- Data from primary schools are still being compiled.

Response rates

The 2002 survey achieved an excellent response rate of 99.2 percent. Completed information was received from 394 secondary and composite schools. Three secondary schools remain outstanding as at 13 February 2002.

Table 1: Number of responding secondary schools and provisional entitlement positions (FTTEs ) within these schools, in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001

Secondary

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Number of schools which

responded

373

380

381

394

398

394

Entitlement positions within these schools (FTTE) a

14,651

14,976

15,242

15,574

15,763

15,499

a “Entitlement positions’ are based on provisional data for the 2002 school year. These figures are confirmed at a later date. For ease of reading throughout the report the term “provisional entitlement positions’ is replaced with “ entitlement positions’.

Entitlement Staffing Vacancies

As in previous years, an “entitlement staffing vacancy’ was defined as any position which was not filled by a permanent teacher or long-term reliever whose tenure was more than 10 consecutive weeks. Positions such as Reading Recovery and Operations Grant funded teachers were not to be included.

Sixty-two percent of secondary and composite schools recorded no entitlement staffing vacancies at the beginning of the 2002 school year.

Although there were 237.9 entitlement staffing vacancies recorded in 148 secondary and composite schools, these vacancies represent just 1.5 percent of all entitlement positions.

In 2002, a greater proportion of schools (34%) reported having at least one FTTE vacancy compared with the previous year (29% in 2001).

Table 2: Secondary and Composite Vacancies (FTTE) as at the beginning of the 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 school years

Secondary

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Vacancies (FTTE)

- number

- proportion of all entitlement positions 170.5

1.2% 132.5

0.9% 132.4

0.9% 124.7

0.8% 170.7

1.1% 237.9

1.5%

Schools with vacancies

- number

- proportion of all schools 123

32.9% 97

25.5% 101

26.5% 106

26.9% 130

32.7% 148

37.6%

Schools with at least one FTTE vacancy

- number

- proportion of all schools 103

27.6% 84

22.1% 86

22.6% 90

22.8% 116

29.1% 135

34.3%

Re-advertised Vacancies

To maintain continuity with the previous surveys, a “re-advertised position’ was defined as any position which had been advertised nationally more than once with no appointment being made after the first time advertised. These positions are considered “hard to staff’.

As shown in Table 3, re-advertised vacancies in 2002 had also increased from the previous year, representing 0.7 percent of all entitlement staffing vacancies. Seventy-nine secondary and composite schools had advertised their vacancies nationally more than once.

Re-advertised vacancies represented 43 percent of all vacancies in secondary and composite schools, up from 35 percent in 2001.

Table 3: Re-advertised teaching positions (FTTE) at the beginning of the 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 school years

Secondary

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Re-advertised positions (FTTE)

- number

- proportion of all entitlement positions 80.3

0.5% 47.9

0.3% 37.4

0.2% 46.5

0.3% 59.1

0.4% 101.9

0.7%

Schools with re-advertised positions

- number

- proportion of all schools 66

17.7% 38

10.0% 33

8.7% 42

10.7% 59

14.8% 79

20.1%

Characteristics of Schools where Vacancies and Re-advertised Vacancies are Concentrated

Table 4 identifies some of the characteristics of schools (locality, percentage of Maori students on the roll, and school decile) which indicated having vacancies and re-advertised vacancies as at the beginning of the 2002 school year.

Showing similar trends to previous years, vacancies were more likely to be in schools with the largest concentrations of Maori students and in schools in lower socio-economic areas (deciles 1-3 schools) than in other schools.

As a proportion of their total staffing entitlement, teacher vacancies were also greater in minor urban (2.1%) and rural areas (2.1%). Re-advertised vacancies were also greatest in rural (1.1%) and minor urban areas (1.0%).

Table 4: Distribution of vacancies and of re-advertised positions in 2002, by school characteristics a

Vacancies Re-advertised vacancies

Schools Positions (FTTE) Schools Positions (FTTE)

N % N % N % N %

Locality

Main Urban (population > 30,000) 87 40.1 151.3 1.4 41 18.9 57.9 0.5

Secondary Urban (10,000 to 30,000) 13 35.1 15.1 1.1 10 27.0 9.0 0.6

Minor Urban (1,000 to 9,999) 35 42.2 51.2 2.1 20 24.1 24.0 1.0

Rural (< 1,000) 13 22.8 20.3 2.1 8 14.0 11.0 1.1

Maori Roll (quartiles)b

0% to 6.6% 28 36.4 43.3 1.2 13 16.9 16.6 0.5

6.7% to 15.4% 49 41.5 70.0 1.3 23 19.5 25.1 0.5

15.5% to 32.3% 39 38.6 58.5 1.4 22 21.8 25.0 0.6

32.4% to 100% 31 32.3 64.9 2.6 20 20.8 34.0 1.4

Socio-economic indicator

Deciles 1-3 40 34.8 82.1 2.4 23 20.0 38.7 1.2

Deciles 4-7 73 40.8 103.1 1.4 40 22.3 44.6 0.6

Deciles 8-10 35 35.4 52.7 1.1 16 16.2 18.6 0.4

a Note that percentages in this table are based on the total number of schools or total number of provisional entitlement positions in each category.

b No Maori roll information was available for one school with 1.2 entitlement vacancies

The Geographic Location of Schools with Vacancies and Re-advertised Vacancies

As well as analysing the data by specific school characteristics, the geographic location of schools with vacancies and re-advertised vacancies was also of interest to determine whether particular regions in New Zealand experienced greater difficulty in employing staff than others.

Vacancies and re-advertised vacancies were highest in the areas covered by the Whangarei (2.6% and 1.3% respectively), Invercargill (2.3%, 1.1%) and Manukau (2.3%, 1.0%) Ministry of Education Local Offices . Schools in the Auckland (1.6%), Rotorua (1.6%) and Wellington (1.6%) areas also recorded vacancy levels slightly higher than the overall proportion of vacancies recorded nationally (1.5%). Re-advertised vacancies in the Wellington area (0.3%), however, were lower than the overall proportion of re-advertised positions (0.7%).

In the previous two years, overall vacancies have been highest in the Whangarei (previously Northland) and Invercargill (previously Southland) areas.

Table 5: Regional distribution (Ministry of Education Local Office) of vacancies and of re-advertised positions in 2002

Ministry of Education Local Office Vacancies

2002 Re-advertised vacancies

2002

N %a N %a

Whangarei 20.2 2.6 10.0 1.3

Auckland 47.4 1.6 21.5 0.7

Hamilton 16.1 1.1 7.0 0.5

Rotorua 18.0 1.6 9.0 0.8

Wanganui 19.5 1.4 12.1 0.9

Napier 12.9 1.4 8.5 0.9

Wellington 27.0 1.6 6.0 0.3

Nelson 6.4 0.9 2.5 0.4

Christchurch 22.1 1.2 4.2 0.2

Dunedin 8.1 0.9 3.0 0.3

Invercargill 10.7 2.3 4.9 1.1

Manukau 29.5 2.3 13.2 1.0

Total Vacancies 237.9 1.5 101.9 0.7

a Percentage of entitlement positions (FTTE) within schools which responded.

Further analysis was undertaken by Territorial Local Authority (cities and districts). Caution should be taken when interpreting these results, however, as the number of vacancies in most cases is very small. In 2002, eleven districts - Far North, Kaipara, Waikato, Otorohanga , Kawerau, Opotiki, Ruapehu, Porirua, Westland, Huranui, and Gore - recorded more than three percent of their entitlement positions as vacancies.

Subject Vacancies in Secondary Schools

In 2002, most vacancies were recorded in the sciences (13%), English (13%), management (12%), technology (12%) and mathematics (12%).

Compared with the results from last year (2001), vacancies have increased in both English and management as a proportion of all entitlement positions (9% in 2001).

A further question asked schools to indicate whether any of the vacancies attracted salary units for curriculum leadership , and if so, in which areas. Thirty-nine percent of all entitlement vacancies attracted salary units for curriculum leadership, the same proportion as last year (2001). In 2002, vacancies attracting salary units occurred most often in science (17.0 FTTE vacancies), mathematics (11.0 FTTE vacancies), English (10.0 FTTE vacancies) and physical education and health (9.0 FTTE vacancies).

Table 6: Subject areas in which there were teacher vacancies in secondary schools in 2001 and 2002

Subject area Number of

FTTE vacancies in 2001 Percentage of total FTTE vacancies in 2001 Number of

FTTE vacancies in 2002 Percentage of total FTTE vacancies in 2002

Sciences 23.7 13.9 31.0 13.0

English 15.2 8.9 30.9 13.0

Management 15.7 9.2 29.3 12.3

Technology 20.6 12.1 28.7 12.1

Mathematics 23.8 13.9 28.0 11.8

Social Sciences (includes social studies) 8.0 4.7 17.8 7.5

Physical education 13.7 8.0 11.9 5.0

Art 8.1 4.7 9.3 3.9

Languages 4.1 2.4 9.2 3.9

Maori 10.0 5.9 9.1 3.8

Music 5.7 3.3 7.0 2.9

Special needs 9.2 5.4 2.4 1.0

Guidance & counselling 4.1 2.4 - -

Other (not more than 3 FTTEs in any one area) a 7.9 4.6 22.2 9.3

Subject area not specified 0.9 0.5 1.1 0.5

Total 170.7 100.0 237.9 100.0

a Subjects in the other category include religious education, guidance and counselling, childcare, tourism and generalist teachers

MEASURES TAKEN BY SCHOOLS TO COVER VACANT POSITIONS

Table 7 provides details of the measures taken by secondary schools at the beginning of the 2002 school year to cover their respective 237.9 FTTE vacancies. As found in previous years, schools indicated that over half (58%) of their recorded vacancies were being covered by trained relief staff who were employed for 10 weeks or less. The next most frequently mentioned measure taken to cover vacancies was the use of departing staff (17%).

Table 7: Measures taken in secondary schools to cover vacancies in 2000, 2001 and 2002

2000 2001 2002

Number of FTTE vacancies covered Percent

of all vacancies Number of FTTE vacancies covered Percent

of all vacancies Number of FTTE vacancies covered Percent

of all vacancies

Management teachers (DP/AP) 12.8 10.3 20.2 11.8 17.5 7.4

Departing staff 17.4 14.0 17.4 10.2 41.3 17.4

Trained relief staff (employed for 10 school weeks or less) 73.2 58.7 100.7 59.0 137.3 57.7

Limited authority to teach 8.3 6.7 7.4 4.3 12.1 5.1

Class reorganisation 8.2 6.6 9.6 5.6 9.4 4.0

Other measures a 2.8 2.2 13.2 7.7 9.3 3.9

Not specified 2.0 1.6 2.2 1.3 11.0 4.6

Total FTTE vacancies 124.7 100.0 170.7 100.0 237.9 100.0

SOURCES OF TEACHER SUPPLY IN 2002

The supply of teachers for New Zealand schools is dependent on a number of sources. The recruitment of newly trained (beginning) teachers is one of these sources. Another source is the recruitment of teachers from overseas. Over recent years, when demand for teachers has been high, overseas teachers have been actively encouraged to apply for positions in New Zealand. The Teacher Vacancy Survey asked questions about these two sources of teacher supply - the recruitment of overseas teachers and of first year (beginning) teachers.

Overseas Teachers

The survey form asked principals whether their schools employed any overseas teachers, and, if so, to indicate the actual number of teachers and the year in which they began teaching in New Zealand. For the survey this year, an “overseas teacher’ was defined as a teacher who had come to teach for the first time in New Zealand in either 2000, 2001 or 2002.

There were four-hundred-and-ninety-seven overseas teachers who began teaching in New Zealand for the first time in either 2000, 2001 or 2002 employed in secondary and composite schools at the beginning of the 2002 school year (Table 8). Just over a third (36%) of the overseas teachers began teaching at the beginning of the 2002 school year.

Table 8: The year in which overseas teachers (teaching in 2002) started teaching in New Zealand secondary schools

Secondary (headcount)

Overseas teachers who started in 2000 120

Overseas teachers who started in 2001 154

Overseas teachers who started in (at the beginning of) 2002 181

Overseas teachers who started between 2000 and 2002 but for whom the starting date was not known 42

Total 497

Table 9 provides details of the schools where overseas teachers who began teaching in 2001 or 2002 (also referred to as “relatively new’ overseas teachers) were teaching. As shown, thirty-nine percent of all secondary schools employed one or more “relatively new’ overseas teacher, up slightly from the 2001 result (35%).

As found in previous years, “relatively new’ overseas teachers, as a proportion of all teachers were more likely to be employed in schools in lower socio-economic areas (deciles 1-3 schools) and in schools with a high proportion of Maori students. They were also least likely to be employed in rural areas.

Table 9: Characteristics of schools in which “relatively new’ overseas teachers (those who began teaching in New Zealand in 2001 or 2002) were employed in 2002

Number of schools % of all

schools Number of teachers

(headcount) % of all teachersa

Secondary 153 38.8 335 1.5

Locality

Main Urban (population > 30,000) 98 45.2 231 1.5

Secondary Urban (10,000 to 30,000) 15 40.5 33 1.7

Minor Urban (1,000 to 9,999) 25 30.1 52 1.5

Rural (< 1,000) 15 26.3 19 1.3

Maori roll (quartiles)b

Up to 6.6% 31 40.3 89 1.7

6.7% to 15.4% 40 33.9 87 1.1

15.5% to 32.3% 47 46.5 81 1.4

32.4% to 100% 33 34.4 74 2.2

Socio-economic indicator

Deciles 1-3 44 38.3 97 2.2

Deciles 4-7 73 40.6 143 1.4

Deciles 8-10 36 36.4 95 1.3

a Percentage of all teachers data are based on a headcount of all teachers on the payroll during pay period 623. This pay period covers the dates on which the survey was undertaken and is the pay period which has traditionally been used for analysis in previous years.

b No Maori roll information was available for two schools employing four overseas teachers

Beginning Teachers

In addition to the questions regarding overseas teachers, the survey asked principals to indicate the number of first year beginning teachers they had on their staff. This year, they were to include those first year teachers who were eligible for the beginning teacher time allowance and those who were not eligible for the allowance. In previous years, the survey asked only for the numbers of beginning teachers who were eligible for the beginning teacher time allowance.

In 2002, there was a total of eight-hundred-and-ninety-one first year beginning teachers employed in New Zealand secondary schools. While the majority of these first year teachers were eligible for the Beginning Teacher Time Allowance, a small number (N=49) were not eligible for the allowance. As can be seen in Table 10, the number of beginning teachers who were eligible for the beginning teacher time allowance increased to 842 in 2002 from 733 in 2001.

Around three-quarters (74%) of secondary schools employed at least one first year beginning teacher, a similar result to 2001 (73% of all schools).

Table 10: Beginning teachers in New Zealand secondary schools

Number of (headcount) 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Beginning teachers eligible for the Beginning Teacher Time Allowance 621 652 740 815 733 842

Beginning teachers not eligible for the Beginning Teacher Time Allowance - - - - - 49

Beginning overseas teachers 60 38 33 17 24 22

Beginning teachers excluding overseas 561 614 707 798 709 869

Table 11 provides details of the characteristics of the schools at which beginning teachers were teaching at the start of the 2002 school year. As found in previous years, first year beginning teachers (as a proportion of all teachers) were more likely to be teaching in lower decile schools (deciles 1-3) and in schools with larger concentrations of Maori students.

Schools in the Manukau (4.7%), Wellington (4.5%) and Auckland (4.4%) regions employed greater proportions of beginning teachers than other regions.

Table 11: Characteristics of secondary schools in which beginning teachers (N=891) were employed in 2002

Number of schools % of all

schools Number of teachers

(headcount) % of all teachersa

Secondary 292 74.1 891 4.0

Locality

Main Urban (population > 30,000) 170 78.3 591 3.9

Secondary Urban (10,000 to 30,000) 28 75.7 93 4.7

Minor Urban (1,000 to 9,999) 59 71.1 134 3.9

Rural (< 1,000) 35 61.4 73 4.9

Maori roll (quartiles)b

Up to 6.6% 59 76.6 196 3.7

6.7% to 15.4% 87 73.7 281 3.6

15.5% to 32.3% 79 78.2 247 4.2

32.4% to 100% 66 68.8 166 5.0

Socio-economic indicator

Deciles 1-3 84 73.0 211 4.7

Deciles 4-7 129 71.5 403 3.9

Deciles 8-10 79 79.8 277 3.8

a Percentage of all teachers data are based on a headcount of all teachers on the payroll during pay period 623. This pay period covers the dates on which the survey was undertaken and is the pay period which has traditionally been used for analysis in previous years.

b No Maori roll information was available for one school employing one beginning teacher

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