Where Can You Find NZ Teaching Vacancies? (Part 1)

It’s that time of year again… NZ schools are recruiting for next year. More roles are advertised during the next two months than any other time of the year. Many teachers and soon-to-be graduates will be scouring the Education Gazette everyday for potential job opportunities.

If you’re not familiar the Education Gazette, it’s the official magazine of the NZ Ministry of Education. Most New Zealand early childhood, primary and secondary teaching vacancies are advertised on its website or in its print publication, so it’s an incredibly important resource for the teacher job-hunter. However, some teaching vacancies are advertised through other channels, or even not at all.

So why are some roles advertised in the Gazette, and others aren’t? And which ones are and which ones aren’t? Here’s some guidelines:

• Nearly all state and state-integrated schools in NZ sign up to the Primary Teacher’s Collective Agreement, the Secondary Teacher’s Collective Agreement and the Area Teacher’s Collective Agreement. The primary agreement states that schools must advertise vacancies of at least one year nationally (i.e. in the EdGazette). The secondary and area teacher’s agreement states all roles of at least one term must be advertised nationally.

• Most independent schools don’t sign up these agreements, so they are not bound to advertise in the EdGazette (though many do).

• There is an Early Childhood Education Collective Agreement that states that centres who have signed it must advertise any roles over a year. However, only a small proportion of centres sign this agreement as many centre owners/managers use their own Individual Employment Agreements.

This leaves quite a significant number of roles which may not be advertised in the Education Gazette, including long term relief roles of under one year for primary schools, LTR roles of under one term for secondary and area schools, roles at independent schools and roles at most Early Childhood centres.

Next time we’ll discuss the other avenues that these schools and centres often use to find teachers for their vacancies – and tips on how you can use these avenues to your advantage when applying for roles.