School resources insufficient, regardless of decile

<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Only eight per cent of primary and intermediate principals consider their school operational funding to be sufficient &&num;8211&semi; regardless of decile&comma; according to findings published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research &lpar;NZCER&rpar;&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<div style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">As well as the shortfall in operational funding&comma; principals’ responses indicated a growing shortfall in staffing since 2013 with 41 per cent reporting difficulties in finding suitable teachers&period; This is twice as many as reported in 2013&period;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Two-thirds of principals were using their operational funding and locally raised funds to employ additional teaching staff&period; Schools mainly used additional staff to teach classes&comma; support literacy or numeracy&comma; or support students with additional learning needs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&&num;8220&semi;Decile was associated with a school’s ability to find suitable staff&comma;&&num;8221&semi; says researcher Cathy Wylie&period; &&num;8220&semi;Sixty-four percent of deciles one and two schools had difficulty compared with 31 per cent of deciles nine and ten&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Lower decile schools were also more likely to be affected by student mobility and transience which impacted negatively on school resourcing because of the uncertainty about staffing&comma; and the cost of establishing programmes to support students who change schools unexpectedly during the year&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;