Teacher shortage worsening across the Netherlands
By Simone Jacobs
As children in the Netherlands have started returning to school after the summer holidays, more attention is being drawn to the teacher shortage. Although the problem is still the worst in the major Dutch cities, every employment region in the country is starting the school year with too few educators, reported NU.nl.
Dutch teacher shortage felt the hardest in Randstad
According to a report by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the five major cities known as the “G5” are struggling the most with the teacher shortage. These cities include Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Almere.
At the end of 2023, the G5 cities had a teacher shortage of 18 percent compared with 8 percent for the rest of the country. This shows a worsening trend for the number of educators in the bigger cities; in 2022, the teacher deficit was 15,2 percent in the G5 cities.
Only 14 percent of Dutch schools in the big cities reported no shortage of teachers, compared with 49 percent for the rest of the country. From this data, there can be no doubt that the Randstad is the most affected by the teacher deficit, but every region in the country is experiencing some level of shortage.
More of the Netherlands affected by teacher shortage
While the Randstad has been hit the hardest, the rest of the Netherlands is also struggling. According to Floor de Booys from the General Education Union (AOb), the problem started in the Randstad and has spread “like an oil slick to the rest of the Netherlands”.
Due to the dire situation especially in Amsterdam, the city has launched education campaigns to attract more teachers. This creates a domino effect as the workers have to come from somewhere. "For example from Almere, but then Almere will have a teacher shortage," said De Booys. As more teachers work in bigger cities, the teacher shortage in other cities worsens, causing regional shortages and in the long term the whole of the Netherlands will be affected.
Thumb image credit: Mike van Schoonderwalt / Shutterstock.com
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Editor for the Netherlands at IamExpat Media. Simone studied Genetics and Zoology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa before moving to the Netherlands, where she has been working as a writer and editor since 2022. One thing she loves more than creating content is consuming it, mainly by reading books by the dozen. Other than being a book dragon, she is also a nature lover and enjoys hiking and animal training. Read more