New improved scholarships to attract more teachers.

All scholarships for teachers are being remodelled into a new single, flexible scholarship to make teaching a more accessible and attractive career, said Education Minister Steve Maharey.

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All scholarships for teachers are being remodelled into a new single, flexible scholarship to make teaching a more accessible and attractive career, said Education Minister Steve Maharey.

"The changes include a new 'Enhanced Scholarship' for people wanting to change to a career in teaching.  It offers a $30,000 annual allowance (nine times more than the current allowance for a three year course), as well as course costs, to retrain technology teachers, or teachers in Maori medium or Te Reo Maori."

Making the announcement at the annual NZEI conference today, Steve Maharey said the new scholarships will boost teacher numbers in primary and secondary schools, by attracting people with other work experience to retrain into teaching.

"There will be 538 new scholarships available for aspiring teachers next year; 80 Enhanced Scholarships, and the rest are scholarships for tertiary students and graduates."

The changes include:

. Scholarships targeted to areas of highest need, including rural teachers, technology, chemistry, home economics (added for the first time), Te Reo Maori, Maori medium, mathematics and physics
. Enhanced scholarships will be offered to 'career changers' to attract people with other experience to teach technology, Maori medium or Te Reo Maori
. To qualify for an Enhanced Scholarship in technology, Maori medium or Te Reo Maori, you must have a combination of qualifications, work experience and where relevant fluency in Te Reo Maori
. All scholarship recipients will now get an allowance, have course fees paid, and they are bonded to teach for a certain period of time once they qualify.  Previously only some scholarships were bonded and had course fees paid.

Applications for the new scholarships will be available next month from TeachNZ, with successful candidates starting to train next year.  Recipients of TeachNZ scholarships currently in training will not be affected by the changes.

As well as TeachNZ scholarships, the Ministry of Education has a wide range of initiatives in place to attract more teachers, including:

. Study Grants
. Loan Support Scheme - Maori Medium Teachers
. National and International Relocation Grants - Primary and Secondary
. Transfer and Removals Reimbursements
. Beginning, Overseas and Retrained Teacher Time Allowances
. The National Recruitment Allowance (NRA)

Steve Maharey says the new scholarships will support work by the Labour-led government to boost teacher numbers, including $133 million in Budget 2007 to provide more than 700 additional Year 1 teachers from next year.

"Since 2000 we've put almost 5000 extra teachers into classrooms over and above those required by roll growth."

More information is available at www.teachnz.govt.nz