A selection of the latest education news and jobs from around the world:
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Overview
The global teacher shortage trend has made news in France this week, where French Education Minister, Pap Ndiaye, has addressed more than 4,000 teaching positions being unfilled at the start of the new school year. What solutions are France proposing to the teaching shortage issue?
First, the country is looking to raise basic salaries to €2,000 for early career teachers. According to the article, this is currently the salary for teachers after 13 or 14 years of experience. This approach could go either way in light of Europe’s current inflation problem. On the one hand, the promise of a higher starting salary might bring in potential educators who have been sitting out of the field, especially if energy bills start to put financial pressure on households over the winter. On the other hand, a pay increase during a period of inflation is not a de facto pay increase, and it is possible that there will be as many people who will dismiss the value of the salary promise as there are those who will want to take it.
The government has also identified the reputation of the profession as a problem that needs to be tackled. In a labour market that is open to the entire mainland continent, it must say something about the reputation of teaching in France that positions are not filled already. Educated citizens are not comfortable with the demands and perceived risks that the job poses. One point of reference for educators in the country is sure to be the Samuel Paty incident, which points to the extreme end of dangers for practicing the profession in France. To tackle the problem, steps will need to be taken on school safety, civic pride, and job satisfaction. However, in a country politically divided on social issues, it is hard to see how the reputation of the profession can be amended to everyone’s satisfaction in this generation.
It is somewhat remarkable to observe that the teacher shortage problem is systematically affecting countries around the world. It is evident that word-of-mouth negativity about teaching has not only affected the UK, Australia, and USA in recent times, but also countries outside the anglophone bubble. The shift from mainstream media to social media, changes to the social structure, and economic stagnation in developed countries could all be factors that distinguish this generation’s view of the teaching profession from views of the past. Perhaps these issues can be topics for consideration for education leaders working out the root cause of the teacher shortage problem, as financial incentives and the reputation of the sector seem to be only the tip of the iceberg.
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Around the EU
French Education Minister, Pap Ndiaye, to tackle teacher shortage in Spring 2023
To summarize the article, France has a teacher shortage of more than 4,000 positions at the start of this academic year, and 3,000 unqualified teachers have been contracted to fill other positions. The blame has been placed on low salaries and the worsening reputation of the teaching profession in France. Ndiaye aims to reform hiring in state schools by Spring 2023 to fix the problem. The government is suggesting a starting salary of €2,000 euros, and setting aside €500,000,000 of seed money for innovative education projects.
Hong Kong
India
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Russia
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Ukraine
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