Summary

These findings suggest that there is wide variability in the background of technology teachers and the nature of the technology programmes being offered in New Zealand schools.  The high response rate (40%) suggests the focus of this questionnaire is of considerable interest to many schools, and the honesty and detail of the comments provided further supports this.  In addition, 165 school responses (67.3%) indicated a willingness to be involved in any follow up to this questionnaire.

The issues surrounding teacher supply are clearly very school dependent.  Comments provided by schools would suggest that the quality and quantity of applicants for jobs is a common concern, as are time issues and complications caused by appointing staff who are not adequately prepared for the New Zealand technology environment.  These comments included concerns raised regarding overseas-trained appointments, particularly with regard to retention.

The age of the current technology teacher cohort was also raised as a concern by some schools and this would appear to be supported to some extent by the age demographics where 80.3% of this teacher cohort is over 40 with just under half (49.4%) being over 50. Also of relevance is the finding that over 50% of the teachers have been teaching for 17 years or more.  Given that age and teaching experience are only two variables among many (e.g. work background, qualification background, initial teacher education, personal attitude, school environment etc), it would be very difficult to make any substantive links between age and years teaching and the nature of technology programme delivery from this data.

Teachers tend to teach across more than one ‘subject’ area in technology which suggests they may find the transition away from a technological area focus to a more generic technology focus, reasonably comfortable.

While schools would appear to be accessing external professional development opportunities, particularly those provided by SSS, many schools do not appear to undertake or see as effective, in-school professional support as led by technology curriculum leaders.