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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. ☺