Why Europeans no longer want to teach

French teachers are breaking records in quitting their jobs, frustrated at low salaries and overflowing classrooms.

As the country anticipates the announcement of a new education minister, some hope for an improvement but many have lost their hope.

Why the French no longer want to teach

Despite promises of improving the French public schools system, the government has failed to make changes, switching between four education ministers in the last year alone. According to data from the French Ministry of Education on July, 3, 185 teaching positions were unfilled during the beginning of this year´s school term.

The absence of teachers reached 15 million hours of lost teaching time in the 2022-2023 school year, depriving students of imperative learning hours. Once an educational and cultural centre of the EU, France´s state education is now among the most unequal in the developed world; the state spends drastically less on schools in less fortunate neighbourhoods, stripping a large part of its population of quality education and employment.

With one teacher per more than 30 students, French classrooms struggle to provide quality education, and at the same time, leave the teachers with salaries below the OECD average, despite the government spending more per student than other OECD countries. But things aren´t much better for the rest, as many European countries face similar crises in the education system.

Why Europeans no longer want to teach

“Teaching was my dream job until I discovered the reality,” and “If you´re not a teacher, you have no idea how bad it is right now,” are taking today´s headlines in media outlets like EdSource and The Guardian, as journalists look into why teachers are failing to commit to their job.

With dire consequences, as European prices continue to rise, teachers’ salaries are lower; the average monthly pay for teachers in Europe is €22,467. Monthly payments vary across the EU from €4,000 to €92,000, as reported by Eurydice statistics, with Finland, known for its untraditional teaching methods, equals €30,002 and €8,063 in Hungary. In Poland, especially, the quality of education has been significantly damaged by teachers´ low wages, making an average of €4, 784 per month.

For these salaries, the teachers continue to labour in overcrowded classrooms, struggling to manage their students. In Galway, Ireland, the Irish National Teachers´ Organisation President Carmel Browne revealed, “Irish class sizes currently average 22,8 and remain well above the EU average of 20 students per class.” Also, in Woluwe, Brussels, 90 per cent of student overcrowding has been recorded within recent years.

To say that teaching conditions have changed is an understatement; with the rise of technology, the situation is even more complicated, as children and teens struggle to focus without tech devices and opt for remote studying, which has become even more popular since the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Will the future generation of Europeans want to teach?

As the 2023-2024 school year begins, 24 countries across the EU face teacher shortages, making the once honoured profession a nightmare for most, and causing a decline in education within the young generation. With low wages, a high workload, and an ageing teacher population; in 2021, only 8% of the entire teaching workforce were younger than 30 years old, recorded by Eurostat.

Sweden has been reported as one of the most struggling countries, with 153,000 qualified teachers needed by 2035. The Education Ministers´ Conference in Germany, similarly, disclosed that there are currently 14,000 vacant teaching positions. At the same time, the 2023 school year recorded the highest number of students in 20 years.

According to the 2024 rankings, the UK tops the most well-developed education systems in the world, followed by the US and Australia. The researchers at the CEOWORLD analyzed the top countries based on quality and opportunities, graded on a 100-point scale, considering the public education system, high school completion rate, and government expenditure on education.

In the UK, also, BBC´s 2024 report of the top 10 professions pursued by teenagers today, teaching is listed as the third, before doctors and engineers; hence, there is hope that instead of declining, the profession will continue, readjusted for the modern world.

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