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The teacher recruitment crisis, from kindergarten to high school, is not just a French problem. From Germany to Niger, via the United States, there is a disaffection with the profession, amplified since the Covid crisis.
There are 69 million teachers missing worldwide to achieve “universal basic education by 2030”, according to a UNESCO document published in early October.
For Eric Charbonnier, education expert at the OECD, “we can imagine that the Covid crisis has given visibility to the teaching profession and as a result, the subject of the attractiveness of the profession, which already existed, has taken of importance”.
“We have 4,000 teaching positions vacant this year in France, a figure on the rise but it is not better elsewhere“, he adds.
In France, these unprecedented recruitment difficulties led the Ministry of Education to extend in November by two weeks the deadline for registering for competitions for the start of the 2023 school year, until this Friday, for lack of candidates.
In a senatorial report presented in June, Gérard Longuet had mentioned at European level “the attractiveness of the teaching profession” as a “general problem for countries, whatever the salary level“.
According to national estimates, for example, there will be a shortage of 25,000 teachers by 2025 in Germany, 30,000 in Portugal by 2030.
Germany, Portugal, Sweden and Italy are also facing “massive retirements, which will increase the problem”, adds Eric Charbonnier.
In detail, at the elementary school level, 60% of teachers are over 50 in Italy, 37% in Germany, 42% in Portugal, 36% in Sweden and 23% in France, according to the OECD.
“Consideration Deficit”
Different causes can be pointed out, according to Régis Malet, professor of education sciences at the University of Bordeaux: “the low level of wages, particularly in France, but also the deterioration of working conditions, status, and a more symbolic dimension strongly felt, which is that of the lack of consideration, of recognition”.
In many countries, and in particular in France, we have passed, according to him, “from a profession with high added social value, prestige, to a form of uncertainty of the missions requested, loss of meaning and finally dissonance between school and life“, regrets to AFP Mr. Malet, member of the University Institute of France.
The shortage also concerns the other continents.
In sub-Saharan Africa, “there is on average one qualified teacher for 56 pupils in primary school, and one qualified teacher for 55 pupils in secondary school”, Borhene Chakroun, director of the division of policies and systems of education, told AFP. learning at Unesco.
By 2030, “Chad and Niger will need to more than double their number of primary school teachers“, he underlines.
In this part of the globe, according to Mr. Chakroun, the recruitment of teachers is “below current and projected needs, as 16.5 million more teachers still need to be recruited by 2030“.
In the United States, we are witnessing an “unprecedented” crisis, according to Eric Charbonnier. At the end of August, the Washington Post spoke of a “catastrophic” shortage, explaining that the country “never experienced such a serious situation“.
For the OECD expert, the shortage of teachers is “a matter of concern on which action must be taken”, but “it is not inevitable”. “Finland, South Korea and Ireland are doing well, thanks to proactive policies with a valuation of the profession by society“, he adds.
In France, a consultation on the revaluation of teachers’ salaries started in October. It must be concluded at the end of February or the beginning of March.