Schools are under pressure to meet the demand of thousands of school-aged immigrants arriving in New Zealand.

Education leaders have described having to use libraries and halls as classrooms to deal with ballooning rolls, pressure on teacher capacity, and “scrambling” to find staff to help new students’ English language needs.

The Ministry of Education is working to add hundreds of classrooms by the end of the year to meet roll growth.

The latest Stats NZ migration data shows 221,400 migrants entered New Zealand in the year to 2024, offset by 138,600 leaving, a net gain of 82,800.

The average long-term trend for May years pre-COVID (2002-2019) is 119,200 migrant arrivals and 27,800 net migration.

Stats NZ data shows there were 36,850 five to 17-year-olds who arrived in the year to May 2024, 14,950 left, a net gain of 21,899 school-aged migrants.

Stats NZ does not have a breakdown of age by country of residence readily available, but the top source countries for immigrants were India (19 per cent), the Philippines (11 per cent) and China (10 per cent).

Secondary Principals’ Association President and Papatoetoe High School Principal, Vaughan Couillault, said at 25 students per teacher, a few hundred more teachers are needed.

Schools are turning libraries and halls into classrooms to deal with the roll growth and with an existing teacher shortage, staffing is also challenged, he said.

“There’s not enough teachers' full stop...but there’s particular pressure in the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) area.

“Students are always disadvantaged when you get significant roll growth where there is physical classroom pressure and indeed staffing pressure, it just makes it less than ideal.”

PPTA President, Chris Abercrombie, said it’s adding “a huge amount of pressure” to schools nationwide.

“It’s probably felt more acutely in Auckland but you’re having smaller communities all around the country having students just turn up who often have English as a second language, there’s often not enough space.”

There is a delay between students arriving and getting additional resources, putting pressure on class sizes, teachers, and ESOL teachers.

“There are only so many ESOL teachers in this country...to be frank, schools are scrambling to try and meet this need.”

The Ministry of Education expects to add 641 classrooms at 138 schools this year to meet roll growth, Sean Teddy, leader of operations and integration, said.

As of the end of June 2024, 270 are complete, with 371 to go.

The Government’s Budget 24 provides $1.5 billion for school property over four years including $400 million for 8,000 student places through around 300 roll growth classrooms and four new schools. This is in addition to student places funded through previous Budget years.

The Ministry provides funding for around 78,000 ESOL students and has a team dedicated to supporting migrant and refugee background students.

Abercrombie is hopeful about the “incredibly ambitious” build programme but said they are “starting behind the eight ball” as many schools already needed property work. Those figures “would’ve been enough probably six months ago”.

Couillault is optimistic and said there’s a real intent to get quick and accessible classrooms, like prefabs, where needed.

Shannon Johnstone is a journalist at Newstalk ZB based in Auckland covering education and general news. She joined Newstalk ZB in 2021 and previously worked at Hawke's Bay Today.