The Education Minister says several factors are at play in making teaching an increasingly attractive career option. 

New figures released to Newstalk ZB show the teaching workforce increased 2.5% last year – the largest annual increase since records began back in 2009. 

First-time enrolments in teaching courses are also up, 6.3%. 

Erica Stanford told Mike Hosking the Government's doing several things to attract and retain teachers. 

She says that includes good resources, world-leading professional learning and development, on-site training programmes, and paying teacher fees. 

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