The metric that looks good is the wrong one
On the surface, the numbers are encouraging. The PPTA’s term 1 2026 staffing survey of 155 secondary principals found the overall number of applicants for vacancies was among the highest ever recorded. For a system that has spent years short of teachers, that should read as a turnaround.
It is not. The surge is almost entirely overseas candidates. The number of New Zealand-trained applicants sat at 2.9 per vacancy, one of the lowest on record, and of those domestic applicants, only half were judged suitable, down from 60 to 66 percent in recent years and one of the lowest suitability rates the survey has ever captured.
The practical result is stark. Almost a quarter of vacancies had no suitable applicant at all, and 28 percent had only one. One in five vacancies could not be filled, and 8 percent went to people with no teaching qualification. This is a quality problem wearing the costume of a supply solution.
A domestic pipeline that shrank at the wrong time
The suitability collapse traces straight back to a training pipeline that contracted hard. Education Counts data published in August 2024 showed domestic initial teacher education enrolments fell 16 percent between 2022 and 2023, from 4,050 to 3,400. Secondary graduates fell 18 percent over the same period, to a low not seen since before 2005. Those are the exact cohorts who would be walking into classrooms now.
The Ministry of Education did not see the scale of it. Revised projections in February 2026 put the 2026 secondary shortfall at 710, up from an earlier forecast of 550. The ministry had used wrong assumptions about how schools cover teacher absences. Ministry workforce head Anna Welanyk said that without the correction, the forecast would have shown a shortage of just 140 rather than 710.
The pain is concentrated. The ministry’s demand and supply report shows primary schools running a surplus of 530 teachers in 2026. The crisis is secondary, and within secondary it is physics, maths, science, te reo Maori and technology, in the Southwest, Otago and Auckland North regions.
Warm bodies in front of the classroom
When no qualified teacher turns up, schools have three moves, and all three are happening. Nearly half of principals in the 2026 survey reported employing untrained or unqualified staff, down from 57 percent in the April 2025 PPTA survey but still widespread. A quarter cancelled courses or shunted them to Te Kura, the Correspondence School.
Otahuhu College principal Neil Watson told RNZ in February 2026 that his school stopped offering Accounting in 2024 and dropped Technology Hard Materials because no teacher was available, adding that recruitment now runs “almost constantly.” Auckland Secondary Principals Association president Claire Amos said schools were leaning on Limited Authority to Teach provisions “in order to have a living breathing human being in front of the young people.”
The timing sharpens the damage. PPTA president Chris Abercrombie warned that the system is relying on unqualified staff at exactly the moment of “once-in-a-generation curriculum and assessment change” that demands teachers grounded in pedagogy and curriculum. Unqualified teachers cannot deliver a complex reform they are still learning themselves.
Today’s empty classroom is 2032’s job applicant
For business, this is not an education story. It is a workforce story on a five-year fuse. The students missing physics or accounting in 2026 because a school could not staff the subject are the graduates, apprentices and hires of the early 2030s.
BusinessNZ education and skills director Rachel Simpson said in May 2026 that investment in education is “ultimately an investment in New Zealand’s productivity, competitiveness, and long-term prosperity.” The organisation had already flagged in a July 2025 select committee submission that “many of the skills that people currently get trained in are not the skills needed by business.” A weaker teaching cohort compounds that mismatch in the next generation.
There is genuine good news. The $131.1 million in Budget 2026 compulsory education investment is a real signal, and a 30 percent jump in ITE enrolments in early 2026, the biggest rise since before Covid, is a real turnaround. But those recruits are two to three years from a classroom. They do nothing for 2026, 2027 or most of 2028, and the projected narrowing of the shortfall to 190 by 2028 assumes the pipeline holds and overseas recruitment keeps pace. Employers should watch the suitability rate, not the applicant count. One is progress. The other is the number that will land on their hiring desks.
Sources
- ODT/RNZ: Schools unable to fill teacher vacancy jobs, many applicants ‘unsuitable’ (2026-07-03)
- RNZ: Teacher shortage forcing subject cancellations, principals say (2026-02-27)
- RNZ: Education Ministry figures reveal teacher shortage worse than previous forecast (2026-02-27)
- RNZ: Ministry underestimated scale of secondary teacher shortage (2026-02-27)
- Ministry of Education: Teacher Demand and Supply 2025 report released (2026-02-27)
- PPTA Secondary School Staffing Survey Report April 2025 (2025-04-15)
- BusinessNZ: Announced investment in education will bolster reform (2026-05-28)
- BusinessNZ: Relevant skills in short supply (2025-07-10)