Teacher: 42 percent of career changers drop out again

For Minister of Education Martin Polaschek (VP), they are the great hope in the fight once morest the shortage of teachers: lateral entrants. More than 1,200 have applied to the ministry for a teaching position. More than 350 are already teaching.

An international study by the Universities of Tübingen, Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart now shows that employment alone is not enough: more than 125,000 teachers – both graduate and career changers – from 13 countries were asked regarding their satisfaction with the teaching profession. It shows that teachers who have completed a full teaching degree are happier in their jobs. With the lateral entrants, the situation is quite different. 42 percent of them get out of the teaching profession once more, with the qualified teachers it is only 16 percent. Lateral entrants feel that they are not well prepared for the apprenticeship, complain regarding time pressure, since they usually have to catch up on courses at universities in addition to the teaching profession, and a lack of knowledge transfer. According to the study, a lot of “first experience” does not automatically mean “good teachers”.

“Later entrants have a great deal of practice-related but subject-specific knowledge,” says Gudrun Pennitz, Chair of the Professors’ Union. But this is usually difficult to convey in the classroom. In Austria, lateral entrants must complete a two-week course before the start of the semester and a two-year part-time course at teacher training colleges. Pennitz calls for a better alignment of teaching and university, otherwise the prospective teachers would be overwhelmed. Andreas Schnieder – he heads the certification commission for lateral entry – does not see the danger of being overwhelmed. The courses are also offered online, and a mentoring program is being developed “so that we don’t jump off as much as possible”.