No teacher gives up their security and privileges lightly. The reasons why teachers leave school say a lot about what should change in the school system.
You become a teacher out of conviction. One person chooses the career because she is passionate about her subjects; the other because he loves working with children; and another because she believes she has finally found her calling. However, giving up seems to be an option more and more often – even for convinced teachers. In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, the number of layoffs has tripled in the past ten years, and in Saxony-Anhalt more teachers have left the school this year than new ones have joined.
Why are these teachers turning their backs on school? That’s exactly what we need so urgently at the moment. Now that so many classes are canceled and more and more people are teaching who have neither a degree nor pedagogical training. The reasons are individual and complex. And yet patterns can be identified that clearly show what could make the teaching profession more attractive.
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This analysis lies IPPEN.MEDIA as part of a cooperation with the Education.Table Professional Briefing before – she had published it first Education.Table on November 29, 2023.
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Once a teacher, always a teacher?
If you first look at the numbers, you will see that most teachers remain teachers. Fluctuation in the public sector is significantly lower than in other professions. In addition, it is difficult to say how many teachers no longer want to go to school. Many federal states do not distinguish in their statistics whether a teacher retires, moves to another state or to a private school, or actually swaps work as a teacher for another career.
In Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, for example, on average less than 0.5 percent of employed and civil servant teachers resigned in 2022. In Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, the termination rate of civil servants is in a similar range, but the number of collectively agreed employees leaving school is higher. In 2022, one percent of employed employees in Hamburg and two percent in North Rhine-Westphalia resigned.
The state schools and education ministries can provide little information about the motives for the withdrawal. In Bavaria, no distinction is even made as to whether a teacher has resigned or is no longer active in the school service for other reasons. In Saxony, the ministry at least knows that more than half of the teachers quit in order to retire earlier. The Ministry of Education in Schleswig-Holstein says that most of the teachers who give up their civil service status at their own request are planning to move to another federal state or abroad.
Main reasons for changing careers
There are three main reasons why teachers give up their jobs at school, says Silvio Herzog. As a former rector of the Schwyz University of Education and professor of educational science, Herzog conducted a lot of research into teacher training and professional biographies. In his interviews for studies, he found the following main motives: First, teachers quit for private reasons such as family work. Secondly, many are looking for professional perspectives and career paths that they cannot find in the teaching profession. And thirdly, there is often too much workload and no balance between stress and resources.
Isabell Probst, who coaches and supports teachers when changing careers, knows two other reasons. If teachers are very dissatisfied with their school leadership, they may also leave the school because of poor leadership. Sometimes a conflict of values leads to termination, for example if there is a large gap between the teacher’s ideals and the practice in everyday school life.
Frustration with the school system
“Not everyone who has doubts about their job or the school system ultimately stops working as a teacher,” says consultant Probst. In the beginning, many people are put off by the financial losses and loss of security. “Those who decide to leave decide: ‘Quality of life is more important to me than money,'” Probst reports from her coaching experience.
For teachers who have quit their jobs or are at least thinking about quitting, frustration and passion go hand in hand. There is, for example, Franziska Hennrich, who had to move from one fixed-term contract to the next as a teacher in Rhineland-Palatinate for five years, only to realize in the end: With 32 children in a classroom that smells of sneakers, there is neither room for creativity for individual support.
“What makes a good teacher for me – especially the relationship work with the children – I couldn’t implement in the school system,” says Hennrich. She resigned and now works in student research in Hesse. A young teacher from North Rhine-Westphalia could no longer bear the stress mentally or physically just a few months after completing her traineeship. “Some of the curriculum is so unrealistic that neither I nor the students see any point in it.” There is also a lack of sufficient staff and support for inclusion. Because her school wouldn’t allow her to work part-time, she resigned after just six months. She has already signed the new contract with an association that promotes learning.
Many ex-teachers remain loyal to the school
“Many former teachers remain loyal to the field of schools and pedagogy,” observes educational scientist Silvio Herzog. The first priority is therefore often not to leave the teaching profession. Instead, many strive for enrichment of their professional tasks and a more suitable work environment. Schools that want to retain their teachers should therefore offer their employees more development prospects, says Herzog.
This includes accompanying staff discussions and individual support for teachers right from the start. “Teachers don’t change jobs often, but they usually change jobs relatively early in their careers,” says educational scientist Herzog. It is therefore important to listen to their perspectives directly when they come to school from university.
A distorted image of the teaching profession
“Individual teachers leaving the school system do not directly lead to a worsening of the teacher shortage,” says Stefan Düll, President of the German Teachers’ Association (DL). Nevertheless, he admits, the teaching profession will not get any easier in the coming years. In particular, the heterogeneous student population and digitalization required even more commitment from teachers. “This changes teaching, but it is not a reason for termination for most teachers,” says Düll. With all the tasks that go beyond the classroom, relief is needed.
When it comes to the attractiveness of the profession, for Isabell Probst, in addition to the working conditions, the image of the teaching profession also plays a decisive role. As a former teacher, she knows both the prejudice of the constantly lazy teacher and the horror image of the chronically overworked teacher. “Both images do not correspond to reality,” says Probst. “Teaching should finally be seen as a professional profession that requires a wide range of skills.”
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