Crisis in Education: Teachers are Leaving the Classrooms

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Due to poor working conditions, the percentage of teachers who are resigning across the globe continues to increase.

Crisis in Education: Teachers are Leaving the Classrooms
Due to poor working conditions, the percentage of teachers who are resigning across the globe continues to increase. Photo: Bigstock
Reading time 5 minutes
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Teaching is in crisis worldwide. Increasingly, teachers are thinking about resigning due to stress, low wages, disrespect, and excessive workload.

Frustrated by low wages, disrespect, insufficient funds, stress, excessive workload, and not feeling valued, half of the public school teachers in the United States have considered dropping out of the profession. According to a study by Phi Delta Kappa (PDK), the principal reasons for the desertion of teachers are discontent with the management of school discipline (60%); salary and low benefits (22%); stress, exhaustion or pressure (19%); and the perception of not feeling respected and valued (10%).

In addition, teachers feel they have a lot of pressure to meet objectives outside of class; one example is the expectations of the parents about what they want their children to learn. PDK mentions in the survey that parents think public schools should have civic courses and offer Bible studies or meditation as elective subjects. These demands increase the pressure on teachers.

Yahoo surveyed more than 50 teachers in the United States to find out what led them to resign. One of them commented that the work stopped focusing on the teaching itself to prioritize other activities such as gathering performance data of students. Overwork is also a factor. “Working 70 hours a week for many years has meant that my health and family life have suffered. I am leaving before the job kills me,” said another respondent. The feeling is shared: A Spanish teacher added that her associates feel overwhelmed because teaching has become a burden. “Things have become very bad,” she concluded.

There is so much exhaustion and disappointment in the profession that, when asked if they wanted their children to become teachers, the majority of the parents said no. Joan Richardson, director of the survey conducted by PDK, mentioned that “as the teaching profession has become much more difficult, we have seen much less interest on the part of the public and teachers to encourage others to follow them in the profession.” There is so much exhaustion and disappointment in the profession that they themselves do not want their children to become teachers.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor,  2018 was the year with the most teacher resignations in the last 17 years. Approximately one million public education workers left their jobs last year. Most worryingly, if the trend persists, the numbers will increase this year.

But this crisis is not limited to the United States; it is something that is happening globally.

The crisis in the United Kingdom

Some 40% of teachers interviewed by the UK Department of Education responded that they do not see themselves working as teachers in the next five years. Of the 8,600 polled, most blamed the excessive workload and overwhelming responsibility as the main reasons for their retirement from the profession.

Also, one in five respondents (about 18% of the sample) do not see themselves teaching in the next two years. They are not the only ones: two-fifths of school leaders and support staff, as well as teachers, want to resign over the next five years for reasons very similar to those of teachers in the United States, namely, out-of-control workloads and excessive responsibility.

Another survey conducted by the National Union of Education (EF) found that 26% of teachers surveyed with less than five years of experience wish to resign by 2024. The reason? More than half of them mentioned the workload as the main reason (62%), and 40% cited the level of responsibility. By contrast, only 15% of respondents with fewer years of experience plan to resign in 2024.

The crisis in Australia

Newly graduated Australian teachers enter the field with high illusions; nevertheless, between 30% and 50% leave the profession during the first five years, according to a Queensland College of Teachers survey. Teachers leave the profession because they feel they have no time for anything because of the workload, in addition to suffering from stress. Many say they feel pressured to meet the requirements of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Arithmetic (NAPLAN), and they are afraid to talk about their stress.

But these factors also affect other areas. Directors are also severely affected by stress. Their relationships with parents are one of the most serious issues because they have led them to resign due to bullying. Forty-four percent of directors have been threatened with violence.

The crisis in Chile

According to researcher Juan Pablo Valenzuela of the Center for Advanced Research in Education at the University of Chile (CIAE), about 40% of teachers leave the profession in the first five years (including those who teach in private schools). In his research, Valenzuela discovered that, of the teachers who started working in 2000, 22% had left the profession by 2002. By 2009, the percentage of defections had risen to 56%. And these figures are only increasing. Of the teachers who entered the field in 2004, 23% had already abandoned the school by 2006. In 2007, one-third of teachers who began working that year resigned by 2009. This situation is attributed to poor working conditions and emotional exhaustion.

The crisis in Venezuela

Venezuela is going through a political crisis that has led to great instability in all sectors of the co
untry. This is also affecting Venezuelan education and teachers. Since 2017, like in Chile, 40% of the teachers have left the profession. Some of the reasons include low wages and poor classroom status, as well as other poor working conditions (such as lack of social security, health care, and funeral insurance).

Low wages and poor conditions have forced about 50% of teachers to migrate to other countries in order to continue teaching, according to Raquel Figueroa of the Democratic Unit of the Education Sector. To remedy the crisis, the Venezuelan Government decided to open the call for “express teachers,” where, after taking courses that totaled 450 hours, the student would be able to teach, a controversial measure that upset many teachers.

The crisis in Mexico

Unlike other countries, in Mexico the problem is not that teachers are quitting; it is that there will not be enough teachers by 2023. According to data from the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education, in 2018, 61,376 teachers were pensioned or deserted. Of these, 50% taught in primary schools and 41% in secondary education. By 2023, this figure is predicted to rise to 160,166 teachers.

According to data from the report “Teachers in Mexico” (2015), by 2023, teacher vacancies at the elementary school level will be about 78,823 and 52,180 at the secondary school level. If so, there will be a severe teacher shortage problem, given that according to the report, the number of graduate teacher trainees in recent years has been close to only eight or nine thousand.

The teaching profession is discredited; therefore, many students do not want to enter that profession. One reason is the low salary competitiveness, as teachers earn 83% less than other occupations, so it is not an attractive career for young people. If this trend continues, it will be difficult to find future teachers, directly affecting this and the next generations; students will not receive the best education due to the possible lack of staff and because their teachers are exhausted or do not have the support to carry out their profession.

The crisis is extending itself all over the world. Most teachers seek the same, namely, a competitive salary, opportunity for personal growth, improved working conditions, fewer standardized exams, and mental health support, among others. Karin Selchert, a former teacher in the United States who quit to be a plumber (and now earns twice as much as before) commented to Yahoo, “The sad part to me as an educator is that I am looking at the people who can make a change, and they are not doing it. This affects everyone. If our students are not receiving a good education, where are they going to end up?”

Paulette Delgado

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0