Staff shortages hit schools: Will a new curriculum add to the pressure?

Monday, 18 August 2025

The union representing secondary school teachers is worried about the increased pressure that may come with the planned replacement of NCEA, as some schools already grapple with staff shortages.

The Post is aware of at least two schools in the upper North Island - one in Auckland and one in Northland - sending select year levels home on certain days to cope with a lack of teachers as a result of winter illness.

While it’s not the first year schools have been plagued by sickness affecting staff, Chris Abercrombie from the PPTA said it was a symptom of the lack of teachers available to fill posts in general.

“It's pretty bad,” he said, when asked about the current teacher shortage.

“We know that there's a real shortage, particularly of subject specialist teachers. So it's really likely that the teacher that's teaching a certain subject won't be an expert in that subject. The Ministry [of Education] do their numbers on head counts. They don't do it on what subjects those people are actually teaching.”

Figures from the Ministry of Education in February predicted secondary schools will be short by 500 teachers this year.

However, a spokesperson for the ministry said the country’s secondary teacher numbers grew by 736 (2.3%) last year.

“This was made up of an increase of 504 regular teachers and 232 day-relief teachers, the biggest year-on-year increase since 2009. Since teacher retention is holding steady at around 90%, this is a positive signal.”

And this year, the ministry is expecting ”up to 1200 secondary teachers to enter the workforce”.

Abercrombie believed that things may be worse.

“We predict there's probably hundreds, if not thousands of teachers who are not in their specialist subject area.”

The PPTA’s own staffing survey, released in April, reported that 57% of principals employed untrained or unqualified teachers because they could not find trained and qualified staff, while 34% have teachers working in non-specialist areas due to a lack of trained staff.

It was “a real concern” to hear that students were being rostered home due to staffing issues, and he was worried the proposed replacement qualification could exacerbate the situation.

“That's one of our real concerns about the changes that have been announced,” he said.

“If we're going to be [doing] subject-based assessment, we need to make sure we have subject expert teachers,”

“So we think it's going to put real pressure on the system. And we know there's been no staffing modelling done by the ministry on these changes, so that's a real concern.”

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The teaching workforce is already under pressure, with a planned strike on Wednesday after a pay offer was rejected - a move the Government has condemned.

A refreshed curriculum is set to be rolled out, while students in year 11 will begin being taught under the replacement qualification, which is currently out for consultation, in 2028.

That will entirely replace NCEA, with a new “foundation” assessment followed by two new certificates at years 12 and 13.

One of the schools currently rostering students home is Rosehill College. Principal Davida Suasua told The Post that staff issues were a nationwide problem.

“The shortage is particularly acute in specialist areas such as hard materials technology, physics, English, and chemistry to name a few,” Suasua said.

“Rostering home was implemented in term two due to high staff absenteeism and a shortage of available relief staff to cover classes. Contractual contact time limits the extent to which teachers can provide relief for their colleagues.”

Year levels were being rostered home in order, starting with Years 13, 12, and 11, who are able to complete their work online.

“We make every effort to avoid sending junior students (Years 9–10) home; however, if required, work is also set for them to complete online.”

Suasua said they were concerned about the lack of detail provided around the NCEA replacement, making it difficult to know - yet - what the possible impact might be on schools.

“At present, it sits as a broad concept that is moving forward without any detailed information from the Government - particularly around assessments and curriculum content. Until these details are made clear, it is difficult to fully understand the potential impact on students, teachers, and school programmes.”

Another school, Northland College, has implemented a three-week roster, set to conclude this week, to cope with staff absences.

Principal Duane Allen said this was the second year in a row this had happened, but parents were largely understanding.

“We have employed a number of staff on LATs [limited authority to teach] to address some of the gaps we have in our teaching staff. We also have a number of staff (some on LATs, some in our learning support area) who we are supporting to gain a formal teaching qualification.”

However, Allen was hopeful the proposed new curriculum may actually alleviate some pressure on staff.

“The idea of having internal assessments marked and moderated externally is something that should save teachers a great deal of time,” he said.

The ministry wasn’t aware that schools were rostering students home until it was asked by The Post, though a spokesperson clarified that it’s not a requirement for schools to inform when they are experiencing staff shortages.

However, it acknowledged that the seasonal cycle of winter illnesses will affect teaching staff and that finding relief teachers at short notice can be challenging.

“We are aware some schools may decide to roster students home when day-relief teachers can’t be found,” the spokesperson said.

“Choices such as rostering home are at the discretion of the school, and we are aware schools do not make such decisions lightly. We encourage schools and kura experiencing staffing shortages to seek support from their Ministry regional team to make sure they know about the supports available.”

A spokesperson for the Teaching Council said it was committed to supporting the profession and the medium to long term goal was to find effective ways to lift the status and appeal of teaching.

“That’s why we’re focused on initiatives that make teaching a more attractive and sustainable career path for future school leavers, people looking for a career change and those teachers who currently live overseas.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Education Minister Erica Stanford said the Government would work with subject, principal and teacher associations to ensure everything was in place for the roll out of the replacement secondary curriculum in 2028.

“Developing the workforce of the future is one of the minister’s priorities for the education system,” they said.

“The reforms underway are building a world-leading education system with the support teachers need to deliver it, and people want to be a part of it.”

Specific questions relating to current staff shortages, or whether the minister was aware of them, were not answered.