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Thursday 13 May 2010

Early childhood teacher shortage exacerbated by training provider CAPS

Limits on student enrolments imposed by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) are causing serious alarm in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) sector.

New Zealand Tertiary College (NZTC), one of the largest providers of early childhood teacher education in NZ, was forced by the TEC to close its enrolments in April this year. This move sent shockwaves through the early childhood sector where employers are already struggling to meet the government mandated qualified teacher percentages.

The shortage of qualified early childhood teachers is so acute that the Ministry of Education has a raft of strategies and incentives in place to encourage people into early childhood teacher training.

However none of these strategies will work if there are no teacher education places available.

“Employers count on being able to have their untrained staff engaged in appropriate programmes of study at their choice of teacher education provider” said NZTC Chief Executive Selena Fox.

“NZTC is a quality teacher education provider with a course completion rate of well over 90% offering flexible study options so obviously there is a high demand for places at our college.”

 “It has come as a shock to many employers to learn that we were forced by TEC to close our enrolments on 15 April 2010 and will not be reopening them until 2011 at the earliest” said Ms Fox.

New Zealand Tertiary College has received on average 50 applications for training places each week since April.

They now have over 100 applicants who have met course entry criteria awaiting a position and a further 400 on their waiting list.

The Minister of Tertiary Education says that the government needs to know that the money being spent on tertiary education is being well used and is giving young people the skills that employers demand and that will lead to productive and meaningful employment.

New Zealand Tertiary College is trying to do exactly this, but is being stymied by poorly aligned TEC policy that does not recognise the demand for graduates in high growth industries such as the ECE sector.

With the closing of enrolments at all of the major universities as well, there is simply nowhere for students wanting to train as early childhood teachers to go.

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