A consequential error

Newsroom reports:

Erica Stanford says she is “wildly displeased” over an error that led to the Ministry of Education producing inaccurate teacher workforce projections.

The Ministry of Education’s latest teacher supply numbers project the sector will be short 750 primary teachers and 500 secondary teachers this year – a far cry from the ministry’s previous report that projected a surplus of 1050 primary school teachers and 61 secondary teachers for the year.

That is a huge error.

The discrepancy came about through an error in the ministry’s 2023 Teacher Demand and Supply Planning Projection, which failed to account for the additional teacher release and non-contact (administrative) time gained by teachers in their latest collective agreement.

Stanford said the ministry’s failure to include this in its modelling made the 2023 data “wholly unreliable” and has written to the Public Service Commissioner and education secretary.

When asked about the ramifications of the error, Stanford said: “The first ramification is that they have a wildly displeased minister who has written to the Public Service Commissioner and the Secretary of Education to advise them of how important getting good data is for the integrity of making good policy decisions.”

This was a consequential error. If you know the projection is you will be short of teachers, you can work to plug the gap. But when you are told there will be a surplus of teachers, then you won’t.