Ako Aotearoa has been working on “a stocktake of qualifications and formal and informal support available to new tertiary teachers in New Zealand”. The full report should be released soon, but Peter Coolbear put up a preview of the findings on the Ako website last month.

They found 81 relevant quals, 62 of which were active. One interesting point was that PTEs tended to require teaching qualifications as an employment prerequisite, whereas ITPs and universities were more likely to require qualification completion during the early stages of employment. That seems reasonable, as the ITPs and unis are more likely to have teaching support services and offer the quals, whereas PTEs are more likely to want people to hit the ground running, given the lack of specialist onsite support. There are also some interesting findings on the level and type of support given to new teachers.

Peter seemed to be a little surprised that there was no consensus on teacher (or tertiary practitioner) competencies – doesn’t surprise me at all!