More people want to become nurses. It shows the figures for Coordinated recordings.
While the arrows point in the right direction for nurses, there are several reasons to raise a red flag for teacher training.
Ten years ago there were 14,000 applicants for teacher training. This year, the number is down to 8,200. That is something close to a halving in ten years. At the same time, the number of study places within teacher education is being cut.
We do not have the full answer as to why the search returns. News reports about violence in schools, acting out pupils and frustrated and tired teachers may be part of the explanation.
Salary, of course, also plays a role in this picture.
Fighting for a place on popular management training. Welcome to the real Kompani Lauritzen.
Raising the status of the teaching profession has been on the political agenda for the past 20 years. That job will not diminish in the years to come.
While teacher education is struggling to get enough applicants, we see that applications for nursing education are on a positive trend. This year there are 900 more applicants for nursing than last year. In total, there are almost 10,000 applicants for the 5,400 study places.
After several years of decline, the trend in the number of applicants to nursing education is turning.
The nurses have received a pay rise in recent years. At the same time, the lack of nurses in a large number of municipalities means that it is possible for individuals to negotiate good employment agreements.
The fact that the job market is such that you are almost guaranteed a job, and that you can largely decide where you want to settle, are, we believe, important reasons for the increased interest in becoming a nurse.
Sufficient teachers and nurses are the key to carrying out some of the welfare state’s most important tasks.
The decline in the number of applications for teacher studies must therefore be taken with the utmost seriousness.
Record number of students at folk colleges
There is an ongoing debate about the grade requirement that the Solberg government introduced to enter teacher training.
The current government believes it is a nightmare for teacher education.
We do not believe that the decline in the number of applicants is solely due to the requirement for grades in maths and Norwegian.
What the salary is on the day you finish your education is of course important for teachers as for all other professional groups.
Strengthening the teacher’s position in the classroom, giving teachers more freedom in the exercise of their teaching role, as well as good further and continuing education schemes, can be at least as important factors in getting more people to want to become teachers.
We do not believe that reduced grade requirements for entry into teacher training will solve the teacher crisis that will occur if the declining number of students in teacher training courses is allowed to continue.
