While Otago schools continue to fill their teaching vacancies with relative ease, the region's principals are concerned at a looming teacher shortage.
Otago schools were in line with the Ministry of Education's Monitoring Teacher Supply report which surveyed almost 2500 New Zealand primary and secondary schools.
It found the number of staffing vacancies at the start of this year was just 0.8% of all teaching jobs.
The proportion of vacancies for secondary schools was the lowest recorded since 2000, the report said.
At secondary schools, the subject areas with the highest vacancies were English (17.5% of all secondary vacancies), technology (14.4%) and Maori (including 8.2% in Te Reo Maori and 4% in Maori medium/bilingual).
The proportion of vacancies at primary schools remained at 0.7% - the same level as recorded for the past three years.
The number of re-advertised "hard-to-staff" positions had also dropped from 0.5% in 2008 to 0.3% in 2009.
Again, the decrease was due to a drop in the secondary sector from 0.7% to 0.4%, while re-advertised positions at primary schools remained the same as the previous year (0.3%).
However, Otago Primary Principals Association president Steve Hayward was worried the surplus of reserve teachers would soon come to an end.
Mr Hayward said Otago primary schools, in recent years, had had a lot of quality applicants for their jobs because the University of Otago College of Education was on their back doorstep.
Yet, the birth rate was increasing again in Otago which was flooding primary schools with more pupils, and the ministry was planning to lower the teacher-pupil ratios which meant there would be one teacher for every 15 new entrants, one for every 23 year 2-3 pupils and one for every 29 pupils in years 4-8.
The situation would create more job vacancies and might even create a shortage of primary teachers in the region, he said.
Otago Secondary Principals Association chairman Philip Craigie said the situation with secondary schools was a contrast to that of primary schools.
Although the average age of secondary teachers was about 50, with many due for retirement in the next decade, Mr Craigie was not concerned about supply.
"Secondary rolls are starting to fall, so teaching positions are being taken away rather than created.
"There will be fewer teachers required so we shouldn't be too bad for the foreseeable future," he said.
The report said teacher supply remained a focus for the Ministry of Education, which needed to ensure schools had sufficient numbers of teachers.
The teacher supply situation would continue to be closely monitored.
