Switzerland faces acute shortage of teachers over next decade

Swiss schools have faced teacher shortages over the last few years. Keystone / Ennio Leanza

Over the next decade, Switzerland expects a shortfall of tens of thousands of teachers in both primary and secondary level schooling.

In two separate studiesExternal link on Friday, the Federal Statistical Office said the number of teachers in primary and secondary school is not expected to keep apace of population growth over the next decade.

The number of teachers is expected to grow by 6% by 2031, while the number of students at primary level will increase by 8% and at lower secondary level by 9%.

Some 43,000-47,000 new teachers will be needed at the primary school level to meet the demand. However, only 34,000 teaching diplomas are expected to be issued in the period 2022 to 2031. The statistics office says that some of this shortfall could be filled with teachers trained at another school level, foreign teachers, and students from teacher training colleges.

Staffing shortages at schools has been a key concern over the last few years. For the current school year, an increasing number of primary schools had to resort to personnel who lack professional teaching qualifications. This raised concern about quality standards.

Retention 

The statistics office also provided insight into the retention of teachers. Of the 91,806 teachers working in 2015, 80% are still employed in a school five years later. The retention rate was lower for teachers over 55, and highest for those between 35 and 55 (84%). The slightly lower retention rate (80%) for those under 35 is something observed in the wider labour market.   

Teachers in Switzerland on average earn more than in many other OECD countries but they report high levels of overtime and stress. The two main teachers’ associations sounded the alarm over working too much unpaid overtime a few years ago and a survey released in 2017 also revealed that around 40% of teachers were “in a burnout situation”.