Principals say paying more for foreigners to teach the country's children is a stopgap measure at best and the Government needed to stump up with more cash to make teaching an attractive career for local tradespeople.
To fill the yawning gap, recruitment agents were being used to find teachers overseas who were willing to travel to the other side of the world to take up jobs New Zealanders did not want.
After searching for eight months for a replacement technology teacher, North Canterbury's Rangiora High had finally managed to find one willing to relocate from the UK.
Principal Karen Stewart did not want to say how much more hiring someone from overseas had cost the school, compared with sourcing somebody locally, but said it was significant.
"You know it's something that needs to be addressed in terms of how do we get people trained and into schools. And that's a nationwide issue to be looked at."
Ms Stewart, who was yet to meet her new teacher, acknowledged there was an element of risk in hiring somebody from overseas.
"The induction they will get when they come to Rangiora High School will need to be quite comprehensive because they are coming into a different education system, including a very different assessment system."
Secondary Principals' Association president Mike Williams said not being able to "eyeball" an overseas candidate was a problem and he knew of at least one principal who travelled to the UK every year to interview teachers.
"A candidate can look very strong on paper, the references can be great but the one-on-one interview gives you a chance to really understand who they are and whether they will fit in to the culture of your school properly."
As the principal of Auckland's Pakuranga College, Mr Williams had recently found himself having to replace one of his retiring technology teachers.
He said there were few New Zealand trainees because they could earn so much more as tradespeople, meaning he, too, would have to look overseas.
"We need to be training New Zealanders into teaching New Zealand schools. We need to be finding better pathways to bring people from the workforce who would like to move across into teaching. So we need to find attractive viable pathways for them to change careers. But unfortunately those things aren't happening."
The Ministry of Education was now working with two recruitment agencies to provide subsidised help for schools struggling to hire technology teachers.
In the past six months, they had sourced 15 teachers offshore.
The managing director of one of those agencies, Stu Birch, said there was a global shortage of technology teachers but New Zealand offered a better lifestyle than many countries and was often a good fit for overseas teachers.
"These teachers are travelling across the world to teach in a different school, they've put a lot of effort in to get here and they tend, when they get here, to be very, very good."
However, no-one spoken to viewed the hiring of overseas teachers as a long-term solution to the shortage of local candidates.
Mr Williams said the only way to encourage tradespeople into teaching as a career was for the Government to lift wages for teachers and to do so immediately before schools were forced to stop offering technology altogether.
