The teacher shortage used to give me peace of mind. I could be sure I’d have job security when I finish my university studies, but lately I’ve been questioning why the shortage is so bad in the first place. As a high school student, I had thought the shortage was a natural result of teachers reaching retirement age and never questioned it further.
It turns out the problem is much more complex than I had thought. Teachers are burning out, not just retiring. The burnout has only gotten worse in a post-pandemic world. During the pandemic, schools were forced to rapidly shift curriculum to an online environment that impacted not just students, but the teachers as well. Quality of education went down and we still don’t know how exactly that will impact education long-term, but we do know that stress from the pandemic resulted in an unimaginable fallout: teachers quitting their jobs. By some estimates, more than 30 per cent of new teachers are walking away during the first five years of their careers. That number only increased when school closures made income more unpredictable.
I now worry about what sort of work environment I am trying to enter and if I even want to enter it anymore. The situation has become so dire that it’s common to see uncertified teachers working. Having someone who hasn’t completed the base training for the job feels quite a bit like the blind leading the blind. Teachers are forced to play a constant game of catch up with no end in sight.
Beyond the impacts of the pandemic, more and more schools are seen depending on portables as short-term solutions to long-term problems. As a child, I attended an elementary school that originally had a student maximum of 480, but its actual student enrollment was close to 1000. To compensate there were several portables where there should have been grass, and the kindergarten classes were entirely moved to another building five blocks away. The school had to renovate to add on additional classrooms to the main building, and eventually a new school, Katzie Elementary, was built a mere two blocks away.
Back in 2013, shortly before the height of the teachers’ strike, not only were teachers being unfairly compensated, they were also being overworked. It is evident that this seemingly past narrative isn’t truly in the past, as it is still a problem today, just as much as it was a decade ago. Something needs to change or we will only see further breakdown in the education system.
Teachers need proper compensation, as well as adequate support in ratio to the number of students. On the other end of the stick, it is a disservice to our upcoming generation to not care for their education properly. As a society, we need to start caring about the education system and the people that make it work if we have any hope of moving forward. Teaching programs are popular and competitive, but what is the point of that if once those potential teachers graduate, they quit their career in the first five years?
Emmaline is working on her BA and ambitions to become an English teacher. They always say, those who cannot do, teach. She spends her free time buying, reading, and hoarding books with the hope that one day she will have no furniture and instead only have piles of books.
