Government to spend $53 million on classroom training for new teachers

Sunday, 26 May 2024

The Government wants to better prepare new teachers for the classroom by spending $53 million on training.

Education Minister Erica Stanford has announced the money will be spent in the coming four years to extend an in-classroom training scheme after a trial proved successful.

It would fund 1200 places in the school on-site training programme, at a cost of $20,000 per placement for a stipend, training expenses, and contribution to tuition fees for each trainee teacher.

Within the package there will also be money to relocate 300 teachers to New Zealand, support for schools to recruit 425 teachers from abroad, another 130 places in a jobs programme for beginning and returning teachers at schools struggling to recruit, and funding for 670 study awards.

Stanford, speaking to Q+A about the in-classroom training scheme on Sunday morning, said a trial of the training programme showed it attracted people to become teachers mid-career.

“I’ve spoken to a number of them, in fact there’s one at Westlake [Boys’ High School] that I was speaking to recently, and it’s not something he would have considered, other than the fact that he wanted to do something different, he wanted to do something meaningful, and he liked the fact the he was being paid a stipend on the job.

“We know from the evidence … that those people coming in mid-career are much better at dealing with behaviour, they’re much better at dealing with parents.

“I’m not ruling out actually increasing those numbers in future, because they’ve actually been really successful.”

The education spending announcement was the latest in a series of announcements the Government has made about spending to come in the Budget, set to be delivered on Thursday.

Standford and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon have forecast that education is one area of focus for new spending in the Government’s first Budget.

Already, the Government has announced it would spend $67m for teaching structured literacy in schools, and $153m on charter schools. Luxon has also said $429m in savings had been found in the education budget.

The in-classroom training scheme has so far been run in Auckland secondary schools. On Sunday, Stanford said the funding for the scheme was a “funding cliff” because it was a trial, and the new funding would not only double the placements in the scheme but expand it to primary and intermediate schools.

The in-classroom scheme had training teachers spending most of their time in a classroom, and completing block courses outside the class to become qualified.

Stanford said the Government needed to invest in teachers, as they were “the single most important tool in the education system” for closing an equity gap and raising achievement levels.

She said not only was there an under supply of teachers, an ERO report showed half of teachers said they felt they were not ready to teach in the classroom.

“We're looking at raising the numbers but also raising their confidence when they are new teachers in the classroom.”

Other pre-Budget spending announcements in recent weeks have included $78m for extending rehabilitation programmes to remand prisoners, and $478m for a refashioned school lunches programme, $63.6m for the Coastguard and Surf Lifesaving, and $571m in defence spending.