Schools struggle to retain qualified primary teachers

Estonian schools continue to face a chronic teacher shortage, and qualified primary teachers are still difficult to find at the start of the school year, ERR reported. Although Tallinn University has increased admissions to the programme, teachers who enter schools may not stay for long.

More than 12 job vacancies for primary teachers were listed in the Teachers’ Newspaper employment section last week alone. The shortage is somewhat more acute in Tallinn and Ida-Viru County, where the transition to Estonian-language education and the C1 language requirement for teachers have made it harder to find qualified candidates.

Schools often fill the vacancies with substitute teachers who lack the required professional qualifications or with employees on fixed-term contracts.

Tallinn’s Baltic Sea Gymnasium is also seeking primary teachers. Its director, Deniss Presnetsov, said the main obstacle was not language proficiency but a lack of qualifications.

“There has been relatively little interest in the primary teacher profession, and those who have shown interest have not been suitable. They are not qualified teachers. They either have a bachelor’s degree or come from an entirely different field. But when we think about primary school, it is the foundation, and teachers must know didactics,” Presnetsov said.

Tallinn University admits about 25 students a year to the primary teacher programme in full-time study and about 25 in session-based study. The competition is strong, with an average of five applicants per full-time place and 10 per session-based place, said Inge Timoštšuk, a professor of primary education at the university. In recent years, the university has significantly increased admissions to the programme.

Presnetsov said schools faced a situation in which students who work as primary teachers while studying leave their jobs after earning a master’s degree.

“The school develops and teaches them, supported by both students and teachers. Sometimes the teacher graduates from university and then goes somewhere else. The resources spent on them simply disappear,” the Baltic Sea Gymnasium director said.

Timoštšuk confirmed that primary teachers often leave the profession, mainly for three reasons. First, they have strong subject-specific training and move to higher school levels to help address the shortage of subject teachers. This leaves fewer teachers in the lower grades.

Moving to become a subject teacher means the teacher remains in the school system. However, the perceived workload causes some teachers to leave the profession altogether. New developments, including changes to assessment systems and curricula, and their implementation are seen as additional work. The growing number of children with special educational needs in the same classroom, combined with a shortage of support staff, also increases pressure.

Teachers also leave early because behavioural problems that can be resolved only through cooperation with families are becoming more common. Cooperation with families is increasingly difficult because children come from different backgrounds.

Presnetsov added that labour market conditions showed teachers’ salaries were not competitive. The Baltic Sea Gymnasium lists a gross salary of 2,500 euros, including class teacher duties.