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Supply and Demand
I’ve blogged on the teacher glut before: the fact that Ontario is graduating thousands more prospective teachers every year than teaching positions exist to employ them. The situation has got so out of whack that the minister has just placed a hard-cap of just over 9,000 on students entering Ontario faculties of education this September.
Perhaps this is an appropriate response, although the ceiling is still well above the expected number of teaching positions opening up next year, but I can think of another way to skin this cat. Ask yourself why so many young people are vying to get in to a faculty of education. Could it be that the rewards of teaching - hours, salaries, tenure, benefits, job conditions, etc. - are so attractive that thousands of prospective teachers are willing to play Job Market Russian Rouletter?
If this hypothesis is correct, then one approach to decreasing the number of prospective teachers would be to make the job less appealing by lowering salaries and benefits and tightening up job conditions. ☺
Yes, supply and demand - think about it.
Don’t forget declining enrollment - that would be your tightening up of job market (conditions). I’m glad you’re being facetious. Although teachers colleges are pumping out too many grads (thanks to the teacher shortage scare earlier in this decade, and the over-reaction by the Harris government), there still remain critical shortages in many areas: French, Science, and Math in particular.
However, this problem goes much deeper than teachers colleges and governments. It speaks to the emphasis our society places on a university education. Yes, we do need more engineers, scientists, doctors - but too many of our young people are not capable of, nor indeed, even interested in, the hard work required to succeed in these areas. Too many want to party and take the ‘Easy A’ - but how many art majors do we need? (or English, Drama, History, and so on). Where do these people intend to work? Schools.
Speaking of critical shortages - the skilled trades have traditionally been, and continue to be, short staffed. We still bring in immigrants to fill these vital jobs. Why? Even though we have long known that we don’t encourage students hard enough to enter these job areas, we put it out of reach of most of the eligible labour pool - by placing apprenticeship programs in colleges. I’ve never understood this mindset.