An independent review shows efforts to recruit thousands of teachers have cost an average of nearly $10,000 per teacher.
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The report to the Education Ministry last year said the government had committed $142 million to teacher recruitment efforts since December 2017 with a goal of recruiting up to 13,000 teachers by the middle of 2023.
By mid-2021 about $72m had been spent recruiting 7595 teachers and student teachers, the report said.
Initiatives included finders fees and relocation grants for overseas teachers and scholarships for people enrolling in teacher education courses.
The report said the pandemic disrupted efforts to recruit teachers from overseas, but also reduced the number of New Zealand teachers resigning to work in other countries.
It said the various schemes for attracting teachers worked, though most had a lower uptake than expected and budgeted funding had been underspent.
It recommended resuming or continuing the schemes with some changes.
The report showed overseas finders' fees and relocation grants were among the most cost-effective ways of attracting new teachers at $2890-$4270 per teacher, along with 'refresh' courses for teachers re-entering the workforce, which cost the government less than $2000 per teacher.
The per-teacher costs of other measures included $88,000-$174,000 for bilingual study awards,
$30,000 for "TeachNZ" study awards for student teachers, and $55,200 for those on the "Teach First" teacher education course.
The report suggested paying bigger financial incentives for teachers bonded to hard-to-staff schools.
It also suggested developing a "teacher value proposition" to make teaching a more attractive career.
Principals spoken to by RNZ said the best way to attract more people to teaching was to increase teacher pay rates.
A March Cabinet paper said there were five priorities for teacher supply this year: STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths), te reo and Māori-medium, Pacific languages, early childhood and hard-to-staff locations.
Early childhood teachers are among the government's priorities. Photo: 123RF