Teacher shortage is quickly felt throughout the Netherlands

Tekst Algemene Onderwijsbond - 13 september 2019 - 3 Minuten om te lezen

Picture: Type tank

If government policy does not change radically, children, parents and schools will face shortages everywhere. We cannot let that happen. The call of the AOb is simple: 'Invest in education'.

Everyone knew that the teacher shortage was coming. Since 2011, researchers have been warning politicians in The Hague about the shortage in reports. For a while things seemed to be going better than expected: due to the later state pension age, the retirement age moved up and during the economic crisis teaching staff remained stable.

Everyone also knew that the teacher shortage was coming

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That postponement of the deficit wave has not been used by policymakers to anticipate what was to come. When the education unions called again and again in times of crisis that unemployed PABO graduates should be retained, the then cabinet Rutte-II only gave money at the end of the term of office to appoint additional young PABO graduates.

The forecasts in the animation show the deficit under 'unchanged policy'. The current 'Teacher shortage plan' dates from the beginning of 2017 and tries to attract more people to education. There have been some modest successes, such as a fair number of side entrants and more people in part-time courses, but they have not been able to keep up with the speed at which the shortage is increasing. So more is needed, a drastically different approach, an impulse, a plan that offers perspective.

More is needed, a drastically different approach, an impulse, a plan that offers perspective

This animation is limited to primary education, primary schools and special education. This is where the shortage is greatest and can be mapped out most clearly. It is also a crisis in secondary education, but per school subject. If you look at the figures from research agency Centerdata, the agency that supplies figures to the Ministry of Education, the map of the Netherlands will already be bright red in 2023 for classical languages, computer science, physics, German, chemistry, French and light red for mathematics.

Accountability for data used
The maps in the animation in the period 2016-2019 use the labor market tension indicator of the UWV in the first quarter of each year. This tension indicator shows the ratio between the number of unemployed and the number of vacancies in the region. The UWV uses the classifications 'very broad', 'large' and 'average', these classifications are shown in green in the animation. That means little or no shortage. The UWV classifications 'tight' and 'very tight' were given the color orange, which stands for a shortage. The UWV has no or insufficient data for the gray colored areas to calculate the indicator.

The forecast maps for 2020 to 2028 come from the latest published research by Center data for the Ministry of Education: 'The future labor market for teaching staff 2018-2028'. This report forecasts unfilled vacancies, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the expected need for teachers and principals. When mapping this, Centerdata uses a blending series of colors. This has been reduced to three categories in the animation, based on the shortage percentages calculated by Centerdata. These are 0 to 2 percent green, or no or hardly any shortage. At 2 to 7 percent orange, a deficiency. More than 7 percent - rising to over 18 percent - is red, a serious deficiency.

The image fragment of the Rutte III cabinet's away day comes from the NOS News of 20 August 2019.

Also read: 'Always too late', a long read about how the government keeps exacerbating the problems on the labor market in education.
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