Kerre Woodham: Who wants to be a teacher? Not many of us apparently

Who'd be a teacher? Not many of us, apparently - the Teaching Council of New Zealand says half as many Kiwis are signing up to become teachers than there were in 2010, and the number of students graduating as teachers has dropped by more than a third. The Deputy Chief Executive Clive Jones said if you look at the number of domestic students enrolling in teacher training programmes for the first time, that's dropped by 51% between 2010 and 2023. We're simply not producing enough teachers to replenish the teaching workforce. He said teaching was not the attractive career prospect it once was. Those who'd chosen it felt undermined, undervalued and underpaid.

But what about the holidays I hear you ask? Those teacher only days? The cushy 9-3 hours? Well, as anyone who has a teacher in the family knows, these are not long, lovely days of rest and relaxation, especially when the only constant in the education sector is change; changes to curriculum, changes to the way they teach, changes to the way children are evaluated and tested. Yes, it is annoying when schools close at the hint of a raindrop and yes, it causes eyebrows to raise when teacher only days happen on the last day before a public holiday, but anyone who has children or grandchildren in school, and anyone who has a teacher in the family knows that dedicated teachers are putting in the time and the nurturing and the professionalism that make our kids' lives better.

At the school that my little ones go to they've had school discos, and movie and pizza nights, and art exhibitions, and sports competitions, and Matariki festivals, and school productions (the production ran over a week), and that's just in the last couple of months. And that's on top of the hours spent in the classroom. And these are the teachers who are ensuring that they’re a success, putting in their late nights away from their families and their friends to ensure the kids get an incredible experience at school, which is why they want to go to school. They're out of bed, leaping into their uniform, and they cannot wait to go to school, and that's because of their teachers.

So what is it about teaching that used to be attractive and why is it no longer appealing? The kind of good news is that it's not a specifically New Zealand problem, in fact, very few of our problems are. Secondary Principals Association President Vaughan Couillault says there is a global teaching shortage.

“If you go into teacher training and you go on your first practicum, you know in the first half a day whether this bag is for you, and so it is a calling but also it's a global situation. So we're, we're pretty harsh in New Zealand looking at ourselves and going ‘good grief what’re we doing wrong?’ Actually, there's a global teacher shortage. I was talking to my offsider in Australia who does the same thing as me over there, they've got exactly the same conditions that we've got. I was talking to a guy in the UK recently, the teacher shortage in the UK is extreme, so it's a global phenomenon where people aren't going into teaching. It is becoming more challenging with regard to the non-curriculum based demands that are being placed on the school sector across the globe. It's a fantastic job.”

Well, it is. It is a fantastic job. Any job is fantastic when you love it, when you love going to work, when you want to do the job, and you feel a calling to do it. And I would agree with Vaughan that it is in fact a calling. It's more than just turning up, going through the motions and getting a paycheck. It's a service job, and maybe that's the problem. Are young people no longer interested in service jobs like nursing, like teaching, like social work? Because they want to be the next big thing on TikTok? They want to do hair and makeup because that's much more glamorous than wiping snotty noses and taking children to the toilet who haven't yet been toilet trained or being dissed and disrespected by teenagers. There has to be something above and beyond the job to make you want to be a nurse, a social welfare worker, a police officer, a teacher, the traditional service jobs.

Perhaps too, in the olden days like 2010, as a teacher you earned enough to pay the bills. These days, perhaps you don't. If you're a young teacher trying to look after a family, there would need to be another income coming in, and you certainly couldn't do it on one income – although I'm struggling to think of a job at the moment where you could just go just beyond one wage, especially living in the city. It might be okay if you are out of the main centres.

Is it the pay that's putting people off? Is it the fact that teachers have to be all of the service jobs I mentioned? Not only do they have the duty of teaching, they also have to be police officers, social welfare workers and nurses, psychological counsellors. If they were just allowed to teach and do what they trained for, would that be sufficient to get people back into the job? Or those who've left the profession to encourage others into it? Generally teachers follow teachers, follow teachers. You know, if you have a mother or a father that was a teacher, somebody in the family tends to follow suit. Is that what is happening within your family? I would love to hear from those of you who do have some experience of teaching either with children at school or a teacher in the family.

What is it that the profession needs to do to market itself as an attractive one for young people? Or are service jobs just not doing it for the kids anymore? They want the bright lights, they want a bit of fun, they want a bit of pizzazz, and teaching is not that.

Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.