Teacher Shortage

TEACHER SHORTAGE

February 2007

Particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States , there have been reports circulating about increasing levels of teacher shortages especially at the elementary and secondary levels . Whether or not there are indeed shortages in the supply of teachers has been debated and even more so the causes of such shortages if they do in fact exist are al , debatable issues . The claim of shortages in teachers is therefore , questionable

Teaching vacancies are usually filled from three specific sources . New entrants are those recently qualified to

enter the profession after having completed either a bachelor 's degree or postgraduate qualification in education which involves teacher training . The second source is untrained teachers who have completed tertiary education but who are not qualified or trained as teachers . The final source covers re-entrants who are returning to active teaching after having left the classroom for one reason or another (Wilson Pearson , 1993

However , the concept of what exactly constitutes teacher shortage has not been very clearly defined . Research has revealed that an increasing number of teachers are leaving the profession to take up positions elsewhere and often this is due to their dissatisfaction with the profession for any of several reasons (Thomas , 1998 . It is generally accepted , therefore , that a decrease in the number of teachers in the educational system in relation to the number of students represents teacher shortages . Teacher shortage is also seen as a low supply of new teachers relative to the institutional demands (White Smith , 2005

Wilson Pearson (1993 ) do not accept these broad conceptualizations of teacher shortage . They believe that , not only the rates of vacancies for teachers should be taken into account , but that the number of teachers who are within the system yet are not qualified or specialized in the area they teach also represent teacher shortage . They also believe that normal turn-over rates in teachers retiring from the profession are not valid data to be used in determining such shortages . Moreover they argue that estimates of teacher shortages are flawed as some administrators may decide to exclude particular subject areas from the curriculum if they anticipate that those positions would not be filled . Webster Wooden Marks (2005 ) also agree that the concept of teacher shortage must be broadened and the argue that it is . not correct to assume that since there is a teacher in front of every class that shortages do not exist (p . 92 . Teacher shortage is therefore both quantitative and qualitative (Boe , 2006

Kerchner (1984 , writing back in 1984 , was among those who had envisioned a fall-off in the teaching profession beginning in the late 1980s . At that time , the teaching profession was beginning to be a lot less popular among graduates as reflected in their enrollment in bachelor 's degrees programs with specializations in education . Kerchner (1984 ) points out that enrollment in such programs had stood at only 5 in 1982 and even the percentage of degrees being offered in teaching had decreased from 21 to...