Shortage of teachers due to workload
Since 2010, the shortage of teachers has become a big problem in the Netherlands, in both primary and secondary schools.[1] This raises the question: what is the best way to solve the shortage of teachers in the Netherlands? There are not enough teachers that are educated enough to offer all the students the education they need and deserve. According to the NL TIMES, there is a shortage of around 2322 full-time teachers. If we do nothing about this, the number will rise to about 4200 in the years 2023 and 2024. If we continue like this till 2027, we might even reach a shortage of 8000 teachers.[2] Furthermore, schools have to violate the Dutch laws to make sure that children get the needed education. In Zaanstad a school was obligated to only have four school days (instead of five), because of the lack of teachers. Workload is one of the reasons there is a lack of teachers.[3] Teachers have more tasks and have to spend more time at home. It is not very odd that many teachers are sick due to a lot of stress. Teachers have to take care of more than their own subject, from dyslexia to understanding the student. These are things that might people wonder of becoming a teacher, since it is hard stuff to take care of. [4] In what way can a reduced amount of workload save the problem of the shortage of teachers?
What can be understood under the word workload, is the number of tasks a teacher must do in school and at home. [5] However, workload had different meanings in the past than in the present. It could be only explaining your subject and answering question and checking projects and tests. But workload could also mean educate children, help them with their disorders and most importantly understanding the students. [6] Teachers must do a lot more and that might be something to doubt on.
To start off with the past situation. Teachers in the 90th have not that many tasks to do.[7] They teach their subject, answer questions and check tests and projects. That is all the tasks which are included in their workload.[8] Teachers might not have had must interest in understanding the students, since it might not have been necessary. Furthermore, they may not have spent much time on one child and help him or her perform even better. It may have been about explaining the subject and staying on the basics of workload, but that was what teachers had as workload in the past. Most of their work was done in school, since the teachers had more power than the students.[9] The students obeyed their teacher which made their workload be done during the school hours. They might not have spent much time at home since they had time enough in school. To sum up, in the past the teacher might not have gotten much workload, or they might have but not as heavy or as much and they had enough time for it since the students obey their teachers.[10] However, this is not the case in the present situation.
Nowadays teachers have a lot of workload in comparison to the past. [11] They spend more time at home to prepare for the lessons. [12] The content of the lesson might be more important, otherwise there will be a lot of students who might be asking questions to clear things up. If the content is already clear and thought through the teacher will have less workload in class, however to make a lesson interesting and doable, the teacher spends time at home and prepare.[13] Furthermore, are teachers open for any question in and outside school times. [14] They might spend an extra hour with a student if the student wants some more help. The teachers are more open, and that will lead to more workload. It isn’t as the past that the teacher doesn’t spend time outside school hours, teachers do want the student to succeed and giving them privates might help them do so. However, there are more things teachers must deal with.
Students aren’t equal anymore, some of them have dyslexia others have dyscalculic, having bad hand writing, some have other problems. A teacher might change their behaviour for this. They might spend more time on those students, because they have more difficulties. However, it isn’t much easier for checking tests. Students with these ‘disorders’ have different checking methods than others, for example not every mistake is wrong. Teacher must change their way of checking tests for these students since they get different grades and scores. [15] This leads up to the teacher spending more time, due to the workload getting heavier and more. [16]
Teacher might get stressed when there is a lot of workload. This happens due to the more amount of work they must do. [17] The question is why do teacher have more tasks to do? Since there is a lack of teachers, they are less teachers to support all the students. This might lead to larger classes with more students in it. The more students the more project and tests to check, but also it is difficult to get control over the class[18]. Students ask every lesson if the teacher has checked their test, the teacher wants to do this as soon as possible therefor they spend more time at home to complete that task. [19] This makes the teachers tired and overstressed. There might be more pressure on the teachers when there is a lot of workload. This might not sound too attractive for other people to become a teacher, since they know about the heavy workload. People might not want to be a teacher, since the students are rude. It is a new period and many students have become rude and some teacher are fed up with or can’t change their behaviour. But it isn’t only that, there are more children in a class which makes the workload heavier as well all things to check has doubled since there are more children. Teachers spend 54,4 hours in total in one school week. [20] That is too much, this might scare other people of becoming a teacher.
A solution is, reducing workload. If there isn’t much pressure on teachers and if there aren’t a lot of tasks to do and if the classes are smaller, people might consider becoming a teacher or staying a teacher. If more people consider this job as a good job there will be more teachers, which leads to the classes being smaller, less projects and tests to check and the teacher gets control again. There might be other solutions such as giving them more money, but if they get money and the workload is still high they will get overstressed all over again and that will lead to teachers quitting their job. Financing them more won’t solve the problem of the shortage of teachers. Neither will the status. We can’t make students giving more respect to teachers. That is all up to their education at home, if they get good education they won’t be rude to their teachers, but if that isn’t the case they might be rude, but we can’t change how parents educate their kids that is up to them and not the teacher, there for making the status better doesn’t solve the shortage of teachers either. Reducing the workload does, if there are less workload people forget about all the work that has been said and consider becoming a teacher. They consider it since the classes get smaller, so less things to check for each student. That sound attractive, more time at home and more relaxing.
This will solve the problem of the shortage of teachers, because every teacher wants to have workload that isn’t that heavy. This is possible if the workload gets reduced and not with the status or financing.
Reflection
Before I had done my research, I did not quite understand what the amount of workload has to do with the shortage of teachers. Although, I did understand what the other solutions had to do with the shortage of teachers I didn’t understand the workload. After a lot of research and many explanations of my other group members I finally got to that stage where I understood. Once I understood all the solutions and mine especially, I from the start thought that my solution was the best. Since the financing won’t make people be interested in teaching if the workload is still high, they could get more money but still having a lot of workload and stress will make them quit their job. The status won’t make it better either, the behaviour of children can only be changed by their parents and not by their teachers therefor the children are still rude and that makes the teacher stressed and then they might quit their job. In the beginning, I didn’t know why workload was the best solution, but after a lot of research I understood that a lot of workload makes the teachers stressed, because they must do a lot more than in the past. I didn’t know this before and afterwards it became totally clear that this is the best solution. If I hadn’t done must research I might not have understood why less workload changing the shortage of teachers. If I had read even more articles, I may have had more facts and opinions of other people to support my solution, but overall I had already many opinions and claims so I could have only been better.
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