Attention to job satisfaction and reducing the workload are the most important ways to retain and attract teachers in Amsterdam. This is the conclusion of a study carried out at the request of the municipality and the Amsterdam association of primary school boards, BBO. It evaluates the measures to combat the growing teacher shortage in primary education.
The shortage of teachers in primary education has been increasing for years. Amsterdam is now short of approximately 706 FTEs of teachers. Since 2020, efforts have been made to halt the growing scarcity.
23 million euros have been invested in, among other things, recruiting and supervising lateral entrants, affordable housing, parking permits and a more extensive travel allowance for teachers. All this appears to be insufficient. Schools must not only attract new employees, but must now above all ensure that teachers do not leave education.
Too busy with peripheral matters
Nearly 60 percent of current teaching staff have considered leaving primary education in Amsterdam at some point. Teachers in particular (61%) are seriously considering continuing their careers outside primary schools. According to the study conducted in the first half of 2022, they are too busy with peripheral matters, which means that they cannot or insufficiently focus on their core task: teaching.
Normally there are supporting teaching staff to organize school parties or trips, for example. But in recent years, teaching assistants and other unauthorized persons have increasingly stepped into the classroom to fill the gap of a missing teacher and have become indispensable in preventing classes from being sent home.
The result: the same amount or more work has to be done with fewer people. A school leader from the study calls teaching a ‘heavy and burnout-prone profession.’
Limited career opportunities, salary, too high travel costs and too expensive housing in the city are also mentioned as reasons for leaving education. The research was published last year and was shared with teaching staff yesterday.
Too little supply
The municipality and BBO are currently working on the next so-called ‘teacher agenda’, which will be presented within two months. New measures are presented in it.
“Travel costs and affordable housing are things that don’t change quickly, but we take the feedback very seriously,” says BBO chairman Lieke Thesing. Have teachers not waited long enough for adequate intervention? Thesing does not want to answer that question. “We take it seriously.”
Alderman Marjolein Moorman (Education) said through her spokesperson that schools now receive as many parking permits as necessary. The housing problem is more complex: the municipality cannot solve that immediately. “There is not enough supply,” says the spokesman. “The pressure on affordable housing is enormous. And police officers and nurses also want a home.”
Nevertheless, something needs to be found quickly. Especially teachers who live outside the city are considering looking for another job, the survey shows. They cannot always afford to live in Amsterdam and want a job that is more accessible from where they live. If this is not better anticipated, teachers will disappear from the city.
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