For those courses there will be more than 5,000 vacancies by 2025, Centerdata forecasts for 2021 indicate. It is expected that 506 fte will remain unfilled for mathematics and 441 fte for Dutch. Relatively speaking, the largest shortage is predicted in the smaller subjects of German and the classical languages, between 9 and 10 percent of total employment. The shortage is also expected to increase for French, physics and chemistry.
Everywhere in the country primary schools are struggling with teacher shortages, but the problems are greatest in the major cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Almere. On average, this concerns 14 percent of total employment that remains unfilled, according to the most recent research by Centerdata from October 2021. Two schools in The Hague had to decide last week to only teach some classes four days a week. There is a shortage of 9,100 full-time teachers across the country. A large part of this is not reflected in the number of open vacancies, but is filled by teaching school leaders, temporary workers or unauthorized persons.
Graduates of Pabo will not be able to close the gap in the coming years. However, a slight increase in the number of graduates is forecast for the coming years. In 2021, 3,820 graduates entered the labor market, in 2024 it is expected that there will be 4,313. Past experience has shown that 92 percent of graduates actually went to work in primary education.