Encouraging your community into teaching

As a principal and senior leader in your school or kura, you can play an important role in identifying future teachers and guiding them into teaching pathways. There may be a Limited Authority to Teach holder (LAT holder), teacher aide, learning assistant, librarian, parent, whānau member, or sports coach in your community who would make a great teacher.

You can support someone in your community to study to become a qualified teacher by:

• making them aware of the different study options available to them
• employing them in your school while they study
• identifying the financial supports they could be eligible for such as scholarships.

Finding the right initial teacher education (ITE) programme

If you've found someone who will make a great teacher, you can now help them find a ITE programme that is right for them. People who want to stay within their community, need to study around work, have whānau or other commitments can find a programme which can accommodate their circumstances while studying to become a teacher. You can access the programme-finder tool in the popular resources section of this page.

The ITE programme-finder tool makes it easy to find an initial teacher education programme that suits their circumstances, as you can filter programmes by criteria, such as:

• location
• sector  
• mode of delivery  
• length of study  
• full-time/part-time
• language medium.  

If you have any questions, contact the provider directly through the ‘coordinator’ listed on the programme-finder tool.

Employing someone while they study 

You might also be consider supporting someone in your community by employing them in your school while they study. This could be on a Limited Authority to Teach, as a learning assistant, teacher aide, or another non-teaching role.  

You can use the ITE programme-finder tool to find out whether specific courses allow students to study while employed in a school. 

If you have any questions, contact the provider directly through the contact listed in the programme-finder tool. 

Encourage applying for a TeachNZ scholarship

There are several TeachNZ scholarships available to future teachers. Current priorities for scholarship applicants include:

• applicants planning to teach science, technology, or maths
• applicants planning to teach in ECE or Secondary
• applicants who are Māori, Pacific or planning to teach in bilingual or immersion settings
• applicants from diverse ethnic backgrounds 

And applicants who are currently working in a school as a:

• teacher aide
• Limited Authority to Teach (LAT)
• kaiāwhina
• kaiārahi i te reo