More than half of the kindergarten teachers in a new survey envisage leaving the profession within six years. They believe that better staffing and more wages are needed for them to stay.
– The staffing situation in the kindergartens is not sustainable, says Stine Sund, 1st deputy leader of the Oslo Education Association.
In a recent survey among over 600 kindergarten teachers in Oslo, it appears that more than half of them envisage leaving the profession within the next six years.
Only 1 in 10 of the kindergarten teachers who responded to the survey envisage staying in the kindergarten job for more than 15 more years.
– It is very worrying. We have a professional group in the municipality who do not consider their career choice to be something they can stay in until retirement age. The municipality has to take this seriously and look at measures to improve the situation in the kindergartens. Better staffing is something the employees have been asking for for a long time, says Sund.
The latest figures show that less than half of the kindergartens in Oslo meet the pedagogic standard.
– The municipality lacks kindergarten teachers, so they should be very interested in keeping the ones they have for as long as possible, says Sund.
Staffing and wages
And according to the Oslo kindergarten teachers themselves, there are basically two things needed to make them change their minds. 84 per cent respond that in that case the basic staff will have to increase. And 60 percent point to better pay. In addition, a desire for permanent temporary workers is high on the wish list.
The discouraging survey comes on top of a rising staffing crisis in the nursery sector. The shortage of kindergarten teachers is increasing, and a number of municipalities are struggling to fill vacancies.
When the latest figures on the staffing situation came from the Directorate of Education, they showed that the proportion of kindergartens that meet the statutory pedagogic standard is on the way down for the second year in a row. One in three kindergartens now violates the legal requirement for pedagogical staffing.
Almost 3,000 kindergarten teachers are needed to reach the target in the municipalities. At the same time, the number of applicants for kindergarten teacher training is in free fall.
Check your municipality: There is a shortage of kindergarten teachers here.
In the Education Association, they believe it is time to sound the alarm about the situation.
– The wear and tear we see on many staff in the kindergartens worries me greatly. If something is not done about it fairly quickly, the challenges we see, with fewer applicants for kindergarten teacher training and sky-high sickness absence, will only intensify, said Geir Røsvoll, leader of the Swedish Education Association, to Uddanningsnytt earlier this year.
This year’s parent survey in the nurseries also showed that there is a larger proportion of parents who are concerned about staffing in the nurseries.
Lose planning hours
The survey from the Norwegian Education Association in Oslo shows that kindergarten teachers often lose the time they are entitled to for planning. The kindergarten teachers reply that they do not get to take the planning time they are entitled to, because they constantly have to make up for poor staffing due to sickness absence and a lack of substitutes.
Stine Sund of the Oslo Education Association believes this shows that the kindergarten teachers in the city have very demanding days at work.
– The staffing situation is pressing, and the kindergarten teachers are asked to be at work to make up for poor staffing instead of taking planning time. This is not new for us who are in contact with the kindergarten teachers a lot, but with this survey we have been able to document it properly. We also believe this is a growing problem, says Sund.
She points out that sickness absence in kindergartens has increased, while the economic situation in the districts is more pressing.
– We receive feedback that the economic situation makes it more difficult to put in substitutes in case of absence, she says.
She points out that the result is even greater pressure on the employees, which in turn results in higher sickness absence.
– When you have an agreement that is so clearly not being followed, it is no wonder that the kindergarten teachers cannot bear to spend their entire professional life in the kindergarten, says Sund.
– Works for free
Recently, a survey carried out by Sintef showed that teachers in kindergartens and schools are the two occupational groups that experience the greatest degree of emotional stress at work.
– The answers from the kindergarten teachers in this survey confirm that they are under great emotional pressure. They see that there is a need to remain in the department because the staffing is too poor, at the same time they see that there is a need to plan in order to be able to give the children a good educational offer, says Sund.
She talks about employees who are left in a cross-pressure, how many end up doing both, which means that they do the planning job in their spare time.
– Many kindergarten teachers today work for free for Oslo municipality, because they usually do not get paid overtime, says Sund.
