As many of our readers will be aware, the New Zealand ECE sector has long been fraught with challenges related to Government funding and regulations. This has been exacerbated in recent years due to the nation-wide teacher shortage, which has resulted in further difficulties for centres recruiting qualified ECE teachers for permanent positions and accessing relievers to cover short term absences. ECC’s most recent Sentiment Tracker survey, which ran in September, reported that 76% (139 out of 182 responses) were either not so confident or not at all confident about their ability to fill a vacant qualified teacher position, while only 4% of respondents (8/182) were very confident. The teacher shortage has also put added pressure on our ECE kaiako, who work hard to ensure quality education and care for our tamariki. I interviewed two of these kaiako about how the teacher shortage has impacted them and offer ideas to help overcome this issue. Thank you to the kaiako who generously contributed their time and views. To protect their privacy, all identifying details have been removed and they have been assigned pseudonyms. Lucy Lucy has been teaching in the New Zealand ECE sector for eight years, most recently in a relieving capacity. Fully qualified and registered, she completed a Bachelor of Teaching (ECE) in her early thirties. Lucy previously had experience working with children, adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum and has a good understanding about the diverse needs of children in care environments. Growing up in a big whānau, Lucy enjoyed playing schools with her cousins and always took on the teacher role; this is where her passion for education was born. Lucy loves working alongside tamariki and supporting them to reach their full potential, stating “I love the way their minds work, their way of doing things, and the way they make sense of their world.” Lucy resigned from a head teacher role in mid-2023 following extreme exhaustion. Several weeks into the role she started noticing the personal stress, and some initial promises like employing more permanent staff did not come to fruition. She cites a lack of support, not enough permanent teachers being employed, poor ratios and no assigned non-contact time as major factors in increasing her stress levels. Lucy tried to lighten the burden for her staff by working more on the floor. In fact, the teaching team were so overworked that one even needed to take a week of stress leave, to which management suggested they had used mental health as an excuse to take time off work. This was the last straw for Lucy, who resigned as head teacher to pursue relief teaching. Since then, her stress has reduced drastically and the demand for qualified ECE relief teachers in her area has remained high. Relief teaching has allowed Lucy to experience an array of different services and shown her that there are centres that are well staffed and provide adequate support for kaiako. She has been offered a fixed-term contract in one such centre and is excited to be working with a permanent team again. NZ ECE Teacher Shortage: The Importance of Gathering Kaiako Feedback to Ensure Greater Understanding of Key Issues Facing the Sector By Ingrid Crispin, ECC Project Advisor December 2023 { 20 }
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