NZ teacher shortage still concentrated in Auckland

Although education providers frequently claim New Zealand has a shortage of qualified primary teachers, most recent South Island graduates are struggling to find work.

According to Ministry of Education figures published in the Press, the average employment rate for Christchurch graduates between 2001 and 2006 was just 34 percent, compared with 48 percent for Wellington and 68 percent for Auckland.

Teacher shortages in areas like South Auckland are nothing new. In the same way New Zealand graduates on their OE often end up teaching in the worst schools in the UK, young British teachers are snapped up by the rougher schools in Auckland and Hamilton to replace domestic graduates who would rather work somewhere else.

Teachers may profess to have liberal views, but most of them still don't appear to be too keen on living in expensive, overcrowded cities, with high crime rates and diverse classes of difficult to control students. In today's, laissez-faire, kid-centric society, it's hard enough to control a mono-cultural, high socio-economic class of kids, let alone a multi-cultural group of children from rough backgrounds.

In contrast, Canterbury has a more stable workforce because it is regarded as a decent place to live. Living costs are moderate, traffic is tolerable, schools are generally OK, and while crime is increasing, it has not yet reached the rates experienced in the Upper North Island. This high quality of life means that Canterbury tends to suffer less from skilled labour shortages than the North Island, despite the fact that its population is aging faster.

Meanwhile, Auckland's rapidly growing, multi-cultural population, is failing to generate enough of its own skilled workers, and is having to import workers from other regions to maintain basic services. Not only does Auckland have a teacher shortage, but is also has a significant shortage of tradesmen, if pay rates are anything to go by.

Since 2002 the Labour government has been trying to address Auckland's labour shortages by bringing in more British and English-speaking South Asian immigrants. However, the problem with this approach is many of the British immigrants don't want to stay in Auckland (can't really blame them), and band-aid immigration is doing nothing to alleviate accommodation costs and traffic problems.

It's increasingly clear that if Auckland expects to maintain a first world infrastructure, it's going to have to train more of its Polynesian and East Asian citizens to fill the vacancies left by a shrinking Caucasian population.