The teacher shortage in primary schools has decreased for the second consecutive year. This is evident from the annual Trend report on the labor market for teachers that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has sent to the House of Representatives.
In the Netherlands, 237,000 people work as teachers in primary, secondary and secondary vocational education, together they hold 178,000 full-time jobs (FTE). There is now a shortage of 5,800 FTEs in primary schools, compared to 7,700 last year and 9,800 the year before. The current shortage represents 6.3 percent of employment for teachers in primary education, compared to 8.1 percent last year.
In secondary education, the teacher shortage has fallen from 3,800 FTE (5.1 percent) to 2,200 (3.5 percent). There it remains particularly difficult to fill vacancies in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, Dutch, German, French and Classical languages.
Click on the buttons to switch between Primary education and Secondary education:
The shortage of school leaders has also decreased, in primary education from 850 FTE to 461 (6.2 percent) and in secondary education from 200 FTE to 81 (2.5 percent).
Less employment
There are regional differences. The teacher shortage is still greatest in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Almere, the so-called G5. This concerns 13.7 percent of employment in education.
The fact that the shortages are declining is partly due to the expiration of the National Education Program (NPO), a scheme to eliminate learning gaps from the corona period. The central government has allocated a total of 8.5 billion euros for this in recent years. Schools received subsidies from which they often hired additional teachers. Now that that money is no longer available, there are also fewer employment opportunities in education.
Although the shortages have now partly been made up, the ministry warns that they will increase significantly again in a few years, partly because more teachers are retiring and the number of students is increasing. The state of the economy also influences this.
Students in front of the class
The staff shortages in education are partly met by people who have already reached retirement age but who still continue to work. For primary, secondary and secondary vocational education, this involved almost 1,000 FTEs in 2024, filled by 2,600 people. About 1,600 of these people work as teachers.
What also helps is that the inflow into teacher training colleges has increased over the past ten years. In 2024, almost 8,000 new students enrolled, compared to 5,100 in 2015. Students from teacher training courses are increasingly working in education during their training, not as an internship but as a job. In 2024, approximately 7,100 teacher training students (more than a quarter of all teacher training students) worked in primary education. The majority were employed as educational assistants.
In secondary education, 5,300 students from the second-level teacher training course worked (almost a third of the total number of students). In most cases they are employed as teachers.
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