I think the experts have to conduct research in such a situation to know the scenario and cope with the problem.

The development of schools and schooling, on the one hand, is determined by the need of demand of the community to the institution. On the other hand, it is affected by the education policy as well. When the community sees alternatives of learning can be acieved through the unconventional institutions and these alternatives are more effective than the way schools run the education, it is a time for change. Perhaps, the comunity, such as Sweden, may need a better ways and institutions, other than schools and formal conventional edu centerd, to take on the roles of facilitating learning and training. I am not very familiar about the edu policy in Sweden. What have been done by the government in term of regulating about the schooling system and teacher training program?

I think teacher shortage is going to affect schooling in the longer perspective in different ways that may have an adverse effect on schooling. You may have persons coming into the profession who are untrained and needing employment but not a career in the teaching profession. As such, you would have a high turn over of teaching staff once they find the job they really want, but students may suffer from the lack of continuity in teaching staff. These untrained teachers may not have the dedication as trained teachers and may not take the time to learn new skills such as dealing with the growing diversity in the classroom, which may result in intellectual and cultural bondage and insensitivity of students as highlighted in these articles:

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Best regards,

Debra

The teaching profession is not lucrative to many young intellects in many countries because of its low economic value in salary. Thus, many of the young intellects swim to other professions. The salary systems must be improved for teachers to keep many of them in the profession. Funding and scholarships must be offered to young, enterprising persons who have the passion to teach to enrol in programmes in teaching. These approaches may in the long run boost the sustainability base of teachers in countries.

Dear, Thank you for sharing this important question. Indeed, in the long run we will have difficulties in this area, mainly due to the low appreciation of governments for teachers. Taking the example of my country, where undergraduate courses do not attract more students, it is clear that teacher remuneration policies will have difficulties in educating young people in the future.

good teachers make good nation. I still remembers my school teachers, though most of them are gone

It's an important issue that urgently needs at least local

/regional/statewide/nationwide statistical research that identifies the frequency of all the variables and all the ramifications involved, rather than being permitted to create a worrying and kneejerk popular fear response. Definitely a stocktaking research opportunity for educational researchers

There may be several parameters operating here, and the reasons for 'shortage of teachers' will differ by country, as individual countries will be located at different points on each one, so a general answer is likely to be of only limited value. I write as someone who: started teaching in a high school in northern Uganda in 1961; taught in a primary school in Kenya; trained as a teacher in England; served in East Pakistan for British Council in 1969-1971; taught in 3 Scottish secondary schools (1971-1992) and then worked on secondment to the Scottish government as national development officer for mentoring (1992-1996); worked for one year in Whitehall (London) as a civil servant on School-Centred initial Teacher Training (SCITT). I gave assistance over several years (2001-2013) to a new university in Vietnam, helping them to develop curricula in rural development and crop science (An Giang University), also a short consultancy on teacher education at Can Tho University (2014). I also occasionally teach aspects of tropical agriculture and development studies to postgraduate students at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, England.

Parameters, in no particular order:

1) How are teachers viewed in your society? What is their status, how are they respected? Are teachers respected by the ruling establishment, or are they seen as the cause of society's problems?

2) What is the state of the economy, is it in expansion or contraction? Are there better openings for new graduates elsewhere, outside of teaching?

3) How are teachers rewarded, do they have job security?

4) What support is given to newly qualified teachers? The UK has had periods where around 20% of new admittants resigned their posts within 12 months.

5) What degree of autonomy do teachers have in their work? Are they using resources which rigidly prescribe their actions?

6) Is there a clear distinction between teacher appraisal and teacher discipline? The former is concerned with identify with the teacher their desires for personal development, and providing resources to implement them? The latter is concerned with meeting standards of competence with support, as well as termination, where necessary.

7) Are schools adequately equipped, buildings satisfactory?

8) Are school heads, managers, call them what you want, properly trained to lead and manage their school?

9) What is the structure of teacher education/training? Is it a theory (in tertiary education) and practising practice in primary and high school? Or is it a competence-based model, where tertiary institution (college or university) and school play roles of equal value?

There is more to be written here, this is just a starter!

Thanks a lot for many contributions! And please continue!

Thanks Charles Howie for very Interesting parameters for searching reasons in different countries.

An interesting factors is: How is it determined how many teachers are needed? One thing is empty classrooms and kids without teaching here and now. But teacher shortage often has the form of alarming prognosis looking forward to 2020, 2025 or 2030.

In Sweden the problem became more visible with introduction of clearer certification of teachers 2013 -earlier the non-educated teachers were not as visible. UNESCO has a goal for 2030 (DFG4) about "ensuring inclusive and quality education for all" and in the light of this goal 69 million teachers will be missing 2030. Or are needed extra? http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002461/246124e.pdf A lot more than the 187 000 which are missing in Sweden for 2032, but that is critical enough.

Important stuff - but what I was thinking of in my initial question was HOW THIS SHORTAGE of teachers WILL AFFECT quality, educational institutions, policies, organisation of schooling, use of ICTs and so on in the years to come?

Hi Anders. In England Professor John Howson has been following recruitment to training and available vacancies for more than 20 years: https://johnohowson.wordpress.com/tag/teacher-education/. It seems to be notoriously difficult to model what is happening now, in recruitment requirements, and for several years ahead, and calibrate training places to meet those fluctuations. Even if you create sufficient training places, getting would-be teachers to take them is a fickle business, particularly for reason 2) in my statement above, namely the prevailing economic situation, but others affect it as well.

In Scotland we have the General Teaching Council for Scotland, the first self-regulating registration body in the world, http://www.gtcs.org.uk/. Teachers working in state education in Scotland can only do so if they are registered, and one of the roles of the Council is to set and enforce standards for teachers. Teachers who fall below standards can be struck off the register. The Council sets the numbers to be recruited, but despite that, at this moment there are shortages

For the future. I see technology of various types playing important roles, but they will not replace teachers or schools. School based education is an important part of socialisation, though some may see that as 'dumbing down' to the lowest common denominator, and choose home-education. Society also uses schools as a child-minding service, though it rarely likes to be told that, thus enabling adults to leave the home to be economically active-- and pay the taxes that pay for education, and so on and so on.

Hi!

Thanks Charles for this interesting material, especially the Howson blog! I will spend some time on that.

I am working with the issue about teacher shortage in Northern Sweden, and the need to vary/ change course design to include untraditional students living far away from campus, second-chance learners etc in teacher education. The previous model with a run of a special distance education now and then I think is not so reliable - I want to help make normal teacher education more inclusive and accessible and with sustainable access instead, Some inland and mountain area communities seems not to attract the normal newly-educated teacher - but they have a number of people that could become good teachers if allowed to be educated mostly from their area of living.

In Sweden the latest is "work-integrated" teacher ed projects in cooperation between universities and municipalities where students are hired and payed by schools for their whole 4-year education, working 50% as teacher assistants or similar ikn schools and participating in education 75%, and a monthly salary on a moderate level. The education period becomes 5+ years then, burt seems to be attractive.

One way to answer your question about how this will affect future generations would be to look at the programmes that have been in place for a decade or so to deal with existing teacher shortages, and what effects these are already have. e.g. Teach for America has been lauded for plugging gaps where schools in poor areas found it impossible to recruit, but the negative aspect is anecdotal reports of some children reaching their third or fourth year of schooling without having had a qualified teacher.

At the opposite end of the scale if you look at the privatisation models that have been adopted by the Low Fee Private school chains in Africa and Asia, e.g. Bridge academies in East Africa, they are designed to be delivered by non qualified teachers (often school leavers themselves). They have a heavily centralised curriculum, delivered as pre-planned lessons to teachers who deliver them from a pre-loaded tablet, with little or no need for individual teacher subject expertise. Again the argument is that this is better than nothing, but my personal fear is that this contributes to the normalisation of teaching being delivered by untrained non-experts, and to the further division of pupils into those who are able to access a trained, subject knowledgeable teacher, and those who are given untrained stop-gaps. My guess (it is just a guess) is that the use of cheaper stop-gaps will reinforce a two tier education system where children in areas where it is easier to recruit (i.e. not poor, not remote, not dangerous) will receive knowledgeable teaching from teachers trained in pedagogy, and the children in tough to recruit areas will have less skilled teaching, more reliant on centrally designed scripts delivereed y less experienced and less knowledgeable teachers.

Lastly, there is beginning to be evidence that where state provided, universal education fails, and children do not receive their teaching from a qualified teacher, the chains that fill the gap in the 'market' ignore local regulations: http://www.right-to-education.org/news/kenyan-court-upholds-closure-bridge-international-academies-schools-over-failure-respect

"The County Education Board decided in November 2014 to close Bridge schools in Busia for not complying with the minimum education standards, including **failing to employ trained and registered teachers and managers**, using inappropriate facilities, and lacking an environmental impact assessment."

"Boaz Waruku, from the Africa Network Campaign on Education For All (ANCEFA), commented: ‘This judgment adds to the similar one in Uganda and is a strong affirmation that Bridge schools do not comply with the minimum education standards in the region. We’re extremely concerned that Bridge Academies, an international profit-driven company with investments that are counted in several billions of Kenya shillings, can come to African countries and charge fees from poor children in our communities without respecting basic laws and education standards of the country.’"

For this reason, if you are interested in the proposal that privatisation is a possible solution to teacher shortages and parental demand, (though I hope that this is not the case in Sweden), or in framing a quality education from a trained teacher as a child's Human Right, have a look at the Privatisation in Education Initiative and the work of Sylvain Aubrey at http://globalinitiative-escr.org/advocacy/privatization-in-education-research-initiative/

to see what education systems look like once they are run on a model designed to reduce the cost of teachers.

Hi! Thanks Helen for your contribution! I find the Kenya case both tragic and interesting. Thanks for the link! Yes, of course private and business actors and NGOs come in more and more where the public sector cannot provide teachers enough, but these, in the end, do not have educated teachers either, just makeshift models. No magic happens in the longer perspective.

There seems to be a teacher placement "paradox", that where the most skilled teachers would be urgently needed, they usually don't want to work. They seek their employment instead in wealthy middleclass areas, while problematic suburbs and sparsely populated areas have litte attraction, and have often to settle with poorly educated and not so competitive teachers.

In the US there is the "Grow your own teacher" concept (started in Illinois) aiming at getting suitable locals into teacher education, but while working in schools. That, however, demands a flexible and inclusive teacher education as a partner.

I would distinguish between NGO based teachers, who (in my experience) tend to be at the least motivated by the desire to educate rather than to profit - though I realise that all sorts of agendas can be concealed within an NGO remit. But the best NGOs, those who work with the requirements of communities, can be among the most effective providers where trained teachers are not available due to poverty or danger.

Re. your 'grow your own teacher' - This works brilliantly where there is a willingness to invest, typically by an external NGO. Of course you need to build in provisions that the trained teacher will then work a minimum of 5 (or however many) years in the community before taking their saleable qualifications elsewhere. I worked on such a programme in DRCongo: https://www.childrenincrisis.org/our-work/teacher-training

The key factor in ensuring that teachers will work with children in the most isolated and dangerous communities is their existing ties to that community - it's hard to imagine bringing an outsider in who would be willing to remain long enough to make a difference - and regarding investing in teacher training as a long term project with ongoing support (remote and visits). To me, this suggests that rethinking teachers as vital community assets would work in many struggling communities. Bringing the parents on board to support a home-grown teacher is critical.

Hi Helen! Yes, I agree about NGOs, even if the agendas can vary.

I like what you write: "rethinking teachers as vital community assets would work in many struggling communities". I wonder if not teacher ed will have to adapt to this more and more.

Hi Helen and Anders.

Two points:

Helen, you write a paragraph beginning: "At the opposite end of the scale if you look at the privatisation models that have been adopted by the Low Fee Private school chains in Africa and Asia, e.g. Bridge academies in East Africa, they are designed to be delivered by non qualified teachers (often school leavers themselves)." Lower down you suggest a two tier system will exist. I believe that has always happened. Right now, today, there is criticism here in the UK about the educational disadvantage experienced by children living in the North of England, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43500164

Anders, I like your quest to solve the problem of supplying teachers for outlying rural areas of Sweden, if I understand you correctly. May I suggest you personally write to the Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland and ask how this is being tackled in Scotland? I am not conversant with the present situation, but we have a large area of our country (Scotland) which is very rural, and cut off at times. I think you might find him helpful, good luck.

Thanks for your suggestion, I will look into it. I have project friends and co-authors at University of Highlands and Islands, I think I check there first. Sparsely populated for sure.

Good to hear from you Charles and Anders. Charles, I absolutely agree with you that a two tier system exists, and is most visible in subjects like Maths and Physics where comparatively few children have a teacher whose degree is in that subject. However, the trend that worries me is that the lack of qualified teachers is increasingly enabled and normalised by programmes which were originally designed as stop gaps, but become the 'new normal' such as the various 'Teach For...' programmes (as I say to my students, can you imagine a nurse, doctor, architect or lawyer being happy with someone with 6 weeks' training taking over their job for 2 years?). Paying more to teachers in maths and science, or to go to the toughest schools, is a state wide solution which could reduce the gap between the tiers.

However, even more worryingly, marketising education has enabled profit making companies to make money from the poorest and most vulnerable, who are the least able to attract qualified teachers, then least able to enforce standards from the companies which fill the demand. There is increasing evidence from India that middle class flight from the state system to low cost private schools means less and less is invested in equitable solutions which offer access to everyone, not only those who can pay for it. Achievement gaps are actually getting wider, including within families, where parents frequently pay for boys to go to the low cost private schools while the girls go to the increasingly depleted state school. The two tier system I believe will only be exacerbated by this. Education systems run by the state have all sorts of problems, but they also have a mandate to achieve 100% access and are democratically answerable for the quality of the results. Marketised systems neither see themselves as having any such responsibility (they thrive by excluding the poorest, plus anyone with learning difficulties, disabilities etc who reduces their grade averages) nor as answerable to anyone except poor parents with few, if any, other options.

Helen, I explained about the General Teaching Council for Scotland (http://www.gtcs.org.uk/) in an earlier post. Looking back at your comment on the normalisation of using unqualified teachers reminded me that one of the origins of the GTCS, founded by legislation in 1965, was an impending industrial action by Scottish teachers against their employers for continuing to use unqualified teachers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Teaching_Council_for_Scotland.

This just published OECD publication on the status of teachers may be relevant: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/valuing-our-teachers-and-raising-their-status_9789264292697-en#page5

I cant access it, but chapter 4 addresses the status question, which was the first of my points.

Thanks Charles, I had not observed that!

The word motivation comes up frequently. https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2018/03/how-does-teacher-creativity-and-autonomy-link-to-motivation-and-retention?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=mar-18-blogs&utm_content=report