Ministry of Education says teacher shortage will continue for next ten years

Schools will be suffering from teacher shortages for the next ten years, officials from the Ministry of Education wrote in an annual report on the subject. However, the shortage has decreased this year. But State Secretary of Basic Education Marielle Paul has said that this is a temporary effect due to the expiration of the support program against corona backlogs.

The Ministry of Education has spent billions of euros on the National Education Program. The aim of this subsidy program was to help students catch up on the backlog they had accumulated during the coronavirus pandemic. The money could be used by schools to hire extra staff temporarily. These people are now available for new work, and that is why the shortage has decreased.

There is currently a shortage of 7,700 full-time jobs in the primary education sector. This is around 2,100 less than a year earlier. In secondary education, the shortage has remained at around 3,800.

Compared to the total number of jobs, the teacher shortage amounts to approximately 8 percent in primary education and 5 percent in secondary education.

Officials of the Ministry of Education are expecting the shortage to drop slightly in primary education before rising above the current level. This is partly because the number of students will increase in the coming years while most teachers and members of school leadership are close to retirement age.

The shortages are going to continue to increase in secondary education for the next 10 years, the writers of the report predict. Although the number of pupils is decreasing, it is becoming more difficult to find teachers for the subjects of mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, Dutch, German, French, and classical languages.

Paul has said that a lot of work is being done on trying to combat the shortage. For example, she was happy with the news that approximately 2,200 lateral entrants from another field became teachers this year, which "approaches last year's record.”

She also said that a positive factor was that regional collaborations between schools are getting underway and are leading to creative solutions to the teacher shortage.

These positive results are very necessary, said the state secretary. “Because as is the case in the whole labor market, the shortages are and remain too significant.”