«Swiss primary schools can no longer afford the absence of men»

by Hanspeter Amstutz*

(30.11.2021) The shortage of teachers in primary and secondary schools threatens to become chronic, as a look at the rising numbers of pupils over the next few years, shows. Although more students than ever are entering teacher training at university colleges of education, the trend towards part-time employment and the excessive number of premature departures from the teaching profession are making for a highly tense situation on the job market. There have always been times of teacher shortage, but the current situation is different in two respects.

Less than 20 per cent male teachers in primary schools

First, the teaching profession has obviously lost much of its appeal among men. Less than twenty per cent men teach at primary school level today. As surveys show, it is not primarily the salary that is a deterrent. In most cantons, the starting salary is quite competitive with professions that require a similar amount of training. Rather, the greatly changed image of teachers seems to have triggered doubts about the pedagogical task among many men more so than among women. Many are put off by the idea of looking after children or young people as a patient companion rather than navigating the class as an enterprising captain.

This pedagogical sense of liberties, combined with a strong social responsibility, has long characterised the teaching profession. Being a teacher allowed a certain independence of thought, an openness in shaping school life and a critical spirit in social issues. It is no coincidence that personalities from the teaching profession have repeatedly entered politics and cultural life to contribute their skills to a wider circle.

Teachers as innovative leaders with social skills

Today, however, the departure of talented colleagues from the teaching profession often happens very early and is a loss for every school team. A vivid school lives from the pedagogical input of committed women and men. However, these liberties to create within the school have been gradually dismantled by too many detailed specifications. Teachers have to adhere too closely to competence requirements and almost despair over the abundance of curriculum objectives. In addition, countless organisational agreements are necessary on top of a failed bureaucratic professional mandate. Instead of being able to go ahead full steam towards explicit educational goals, many teachers lose themselves in third-rate tasks outside the teaching field.

Policymakers must seriously question the role of teachers if they want to bring more men back into the profession. The idea that teachers are innovative leaders with social skills is close to many people’s hearts. Therefore, liberties of methods and an open competition of didactic ideas must not exist only on paper. As long as doctrinaire requirements such as the nonsensical devaluation of guided whole class teaching or the energy-wasting full integration of pupils with behavioural problems into regular classes are imposed on teachers, this considerably mars the image of a profession with pronounced autonomy of action.

Men were the first to react to all these developments and in some cases turned their backs on pedagogy for good. But many women are also not at all satisfied that irrelevant and administrative matters are pushing teaching into the background. Most of them, however, seem to have come to terms with the new circumstances and are still committed to doing the best they can in their teams.

Fragmentation of workloads creates considerable pedagogical disadvantages

The second area of concern relates to the percentage of teachers employed and the too narrow or inappropriate training profiles for classroom teachers. Today, only a minority teaches full time. In addition, there are a large number of part-time employees with varying degrees of employment. The problem is not the few mini-positions but the fact that the demanding class teacher positions can often only be filled with difficulty by suitable teachers. If a teacher has to teach several classes due to a too narrow training profile, it becomes difficult to build close learning relationships. There is a lack of large teaching blocks for a freer and more efficient organisation of lessons.

At the turn of the millennium, splitting the entire teaching programme of a class among several heads was considered pedagogical progress. Every pupil should have the chance in life to meet someone with the same wavelength in a team of several teachers. In addition, it was assumed that with a narrower educational profile, subject competences would be significantly greater. And less talented teachers should thus be able to do less harm.

Upgrading the class teacher function facilitates good class management

At the time, there was a peculiar distrust of the system of broadly trained class teachers. Teacher personalities with a strong will to shape education were suddenly less in demand, because children and young people were not to be exposed to the views of a single teacher under any circumstances. Balance was number one, trust was placed in the diversity of opinions and characters in a team of teachers. In the process, it was realised much too late that far more weighty disadvantages were accepted with the new system. Classes taught by different specialists, almost like in grammar school, were difficult to manage. The frequent changes of teachers and classrooms were often associated with commotion and organisational effort. Although the class teacher function was mostly assigned to individual teachers, much was lost of the spirit of the previous model with wide-ranging lessons of the class teacher. This loss of pedagogical charisma has certainly damaged the reputation of the entire profession and seems to have been overcome only recently by more differentiated views of the teaching profession.

In a modern school, the team concept undoubtedly plays a major role. Fundamental pedagogical ideas can be discussed here and their implementation can be followed. Special education teachers and specialists from various fields are indispensable helpers for the well-being of the children. But parents always want to know who is primarily responsible for their child in a class. The younger a child is, the more central is the function of the class teacher. For the development of a constant learning relationship, daily encounters in lesson blocks of several hours with the class teacher are of inestimable advantage. In well-coordinated teams, the class teacher function can also be divided between two people.

The root causes of the teacher shortage must be addressed

Actually, the education directorates should have acted long ago. However, they are finding it extremely difficult to decisively improve the position of classroom teachers. There has been no real progress neither in terms of wages nor in terms of reducing the workload of classroom teachers by reducing the number of lessons they have to teach. Too little is being done to counteract the fragmentation of teaching loads and the associated organisational workload. It is clear to everyone that class teachers form the strong backbone of our primary schools and make the successful utilisation of many subject teachers possible in the first place.

The shortage of teachers can only be remedied if we succeed in attracting more men to the teaching profession, which – all in all – is still very attractive. Though, this presupposes an image of teachers that emphasises the liberties in the profession as well as the leadership responsibility for a class. Men and women do not simply want to be executors of educational curricula and to fulfil educational wishes from all sides. Those who are teachers want to be able to freely design lessons with a view to essential mandate objectives and to take time for the pupils entrusted to them. Teachers should not be ashamed to accept their challenging task as a vocation, because there is a lot of educational power in it.

Education policy is challenged. It can continue to excuse the teacher shortage with rising pupil numbers instead of getting to the bottom of the underlying causes. But the second option would be much more courageous and promising.

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)