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Primary school principals called for urgent action on the Auckland teacher shortage in a meeting with education officials yesterday.
South Auckland has emerged as one of the worst-hit areas in the teacher shortage "crisis", with schools unable to get relief workers forced to "double up" their classes when a teacher calls in sick.
The problem was expected to worsen next term, as school rolls traditionally rise at the end of the year.
A Government pledge to lower the ratio of new entrant students to their teachers next year was predicted to add to the pressure.
Education workers blamed the situation on low pay, tough working conditions and lack of opportunities for new graduates.
The Ministry of Education yesterday laid out a short-term action plan to counter the squeeze.
TeachNZ manager Irene Lynch said measures included re-training lapsed teachers in high demand areas, recruiting internationally and easing entry requirements for primary teachers who are working overseas but want to move to New Zealand.
Auckland Primary Principals' Association president Ken Pemberton, who met Ms Lynch yesterday, said the group would lobby for extra pay and incentives for Auckland staff.
Mr Pemberton said the problem was complex and the troubled areas were growing all the time.
"It used to be the likes of Otara - it's now moved out to Manurewa and Papakura as well," he said.
Rex Buckley, principal of Kingsford School in Mangere East, said he couldn't get a relief teacher on five days this term, despite paying for the services of a specialist agency.
At Mayfield School in Otara, principal Colleen Murray said she had given up trying to get cover staff because they were in such short supply.
"If a teacher is away for one day, we have got enough classrooms to be able to split the class - so every other class would get one extra child," she said.
"We would prefer not to do that if we had quality relieving teachers to chose from."
Mrs Murray said finding long-term replacements in the 30-strong teaching staff was hard.
"The quality of suitable applicants applying for permanent positions in South Auckland schools has all but dried up," said Mrs Murray.
New Zealand Educational Institute national president Irene Cooper said the problem wasn't in attracting teachers to training courses, it was the transition from trainee to full-time teacher.
Ministry of Education figures showed since 2001 an extra 3068 primary teachers had been trained on top of what was needed to keep up with school roll growth.
"Teachers are being trained," said Ms Cooper, head of the country's largest education union.
"[But] they're coming out on to the market in January and there aren't enough jobs because primary school rolls rise over the year.
"Then when schools want them by the third term they've gone into other employment and they're lost to the profession because they never come back.
"So what we've asked the Government to do is ensure better employment levels from the beginning of the year."
This had been done in the past by employing "extra" teachers from the start of the year who then filled gaps as they became available.
She said 40 per cent of teacher graduates did not get jobs on completion of training.
The NZEI, which represents 27,000 primary teachers, is negotiating with the Government over a claim to resource a new career model for teachers and an increased base pay.
National Party education spokeswoman Katherine Rich said the situation was so bad in South Auckland some children had a different relieving teacher every day, while other schools could not even get teachers to fill in.
She said the Government had done little to tackle the crisis, which had been brewing for years.
