Low salary harms quality of education
The appeal of education is under pressure. Young people would like to work in education, but will give up when they see the low salary.
Not salary, but status, according to Minister Jet Bussemaker of Education, determines whether people choose this sector. "In Finland, the teacher has a high status, but the salary is not decisive for that," said the minister a few years ago in an interview with the Volkskrant. "We have to make sure, just like there, everyone here wants to marry a teacher or teacher."
That is a bit too easy. Teaching staff do not only choose the sector because of their love for the profession. “In Finland the pay differentials between teachers and other higher educated people are much smaller than here,” says AObchairman Liesbeth Verheggen.
That salary matters when choosing education is shown in the recent OECD report Education at a glance (2016).
OECD concludes that low salaries in the teaching profession are associated with feminization in almost all countries, most strongly in primary education.
The lower the salary in a country compared to other higher educated people, the more women work there. In other words: a low salary drives men out of education. "If nothing changes, it will also apply to women," says Verheggen. “Because there are already thousands of young people who would like to work in education, but refrain from doing so when they look at reports about a high workload and a low salary. And we know that we have only fallen behind with others. ”
Zero line
Since the beginning of this century, salaries in education have been too low to compete with other sectors. This has emerged from research by scientists and advisory bodies such as the Central Planning Board and the Education Council.
In his inaugural lecture of 2014, Professor Frank Cörvers (Maastricht University) shows that the salary development in education is lagging behind. He makes a direct link between the inadequate salary and the shortage of good teachers.
Since the XNUMXs, teacher salaries have dropped across the board compared to other professions.
Especially academics in education are significantly behind, up to 20 percent on their peers. The zero line of the past years reinforces this gap with the market, Cörvers points out in his inaugural lecture.
The Research Center for Education and the Labor Market at Maastricht University has compared the wage development of starters in different higher professional education sectors and concludes that the education sector declined between 2011 and 2015, after starters' salaries had risen sharply earlier.
Since the beginning of this century, the Netherlands has had to deal with shortages and sometimes surpluses of teaching staff, but the trend is that there is a constant shortage of teachers as the economy picks up.
Amazement
Why do young people avoid teacher training while working in education is popular with large groups? The AOb notes that a growing group of teachers in primary education is surprised at the traditionally existing salary difference between primary and secondary education, while both professions require a higher professional education diploma. In a study from last year, the Central Bureau of Statistics indicates that more than six out of ten men who have completed the PABO do not teach in primary education. They make a career move towards management, further education or outside of education, where salaries are higher.
Now that more and more highly educated women are conquering their place in the labor market, it is not unlikely that women will soon also ignore teacher training given the limited career prospects.
Promise
The appeal of education is also under pressure because the promise that teachers in primary, secondary and secondary vocational education would move faster to higher salary scales has not been fulfilled. In the Teacher Covenant, employers and unions agreed in 2008 that all sectors would free up money for higher salary scales, but due to a lack of money on boards, the targets will not be achieved. The transfer is often related to a different range of duties, while the intention was that a teacher who wants to teach would also have the prospect of salary improvement.
Especially in the Randstad, a growing number of schools for primary and secondary education and MBO are unable to attract enough people. This is currently still a regional trend, but according to predictions by research firm Centerdata, this trend will eventually continue in almost the entire country. After a sharp dip, the registration at the teacher training colleges seems to be recovering at the moment, but despite good job prospects, municipal bonuses and other measures, this is not yet or hardly successful in the Randstad.
“Due to the low salaries and advancement prospects that are not being realized, the attractiveness of the profession is under pressure,” says Liesbeth Verheggen. “The shortages of teachers in primary education and several subjects in secondary education are only increasing. This poses major risks to quality. It is time to do something about that. ”
