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Article Excerpt
Although there is a general consensus that teachers are important for student learning, there is little discussion of the process by which teachers are employed by schools: the teacher labour market. We argue, based on a mix of a priori and inductive reasoning, that inflexible attitudes about comparative wages have contributed toward chronic shortages of qualified teachers in specialised teacher labour markets and poor incentives for excellent teachers to remain teaching. Overseas studies indicate that chronic shortages occur because fewer science and mathematics graduates, compared to humanities and social science graduates, are attracted to teaching. Higher wage rates for teachers with scarce skills will alleviate shortages and reduce attrition of the most able teachers.
Keywords
labour force development
teacher shortage
teacher placement
salary wage differentials
teacher supply and demand
wages
Introduction
Although there is a general consensus about the importance of teachers to student learning, there is little discussion of the process by which teachers are employed by schools: the teacher labour market. In this paper we analyse whether current institutional features of teacher labour markets are hindering improvements in the quality of teaching in Australia with reference to the empirical literature, such as it exists. We argue, based on mix of a priori and inductive reasoning, that entrenched inflexibilities in the payment system contribute to chronic shortages of qualified teachers in specialised areas and poor incentives for excellent teachers to remain teaching.
We maintain that increased flexibility for schools to remunerate their staff according to whether they possess scarce skills or are outstanding performers will: (a) encourage more and superior graduates to train in the teaching sub-disciplines where there are shortages; and (b) enable schools to retain good instructors and superior youth mentors as teachers.
The following section discusses how teacher labour markets operate and the way in which institutions govern demand and supply for teachers. Section three argues that labour markets for teachers operate inefficiently, as evidenced by chronic shortages in some disciplines and attrition of experienced teachers. Section four examines evidence on what attracts people to teaching and retains them in teaching. The final section canvasses policy options which are likely to relieve shortages and encourage exceptional performance by working teachers.
How teacher labour markets operate
A labour market comprises sellers of labour, in this case qualified teachers, and buyers, that is, school systems and school principals. A labour market can be characterised by the factors that drive demand and determine supply. The dominant factors governing demand for teaching services are the number of people of school age, educational retention rates, the ratio of students to teachers and the cost of hiring teachers. The effective current labour supply of qualified teachers includes all people who have recognised teacher qualifications or currently work or have worked as teachers in Australia. (1) Supply of qualified teachers is limited by institutions: university faculties determine the number of teacher training positions offered and the education authorities decide policies on employing teachers from overseas. Given these parameters, the actual number of supply of teachers available for employment is governed by the pecuniary and non-pecuniary rewards to teaching which attract people to a teaching career. Pecuniary rewards are, of course, wages and probable wages growth. Non-pecuniary rewards are the conditions of employment: the number contact weeks and hours per week, the security of employment, the ease of moving in and out of employment, access to professional development, and the provision of auxiliary staff and teacher aides to ease the work load.
The unrelated nature of these two sets of factors mean that demand will only equal supply by coincidence. Two forces that can balance labour markets are the relative rewards from working (earnings and conditions of employment) and, job opportunities for quahfied teachers in alternative markets. (2)
In Australia, teachers are a large component of the labour market. In 2002 there were 255,000 teachers comprising three per cent of the employed labour force (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002). However, teachers do not constitute a single labour market. Teacher labour markets are segmented according to level of schooling--primary or secondary--and within the secondary school labour market, by subject area. Markets are segmented when the type of skills supplied differ so substantially that one type of labour cannot be substituted for another without a considerable loss of productivity. A primary school teacher is very unlikely to be a substitute in a secondary school for a qualified secondary school teacher. In secondary schools, an English teacher cannot substitute a senior mathematics teacher.
Teaching labour markets are not segmented by school sector. A qualified science teacher with two years' experience in the government sector is equally capable of teaching in the non-government sector. Nor are teaching labour markets segmented by employment contract. Teachers within a teacher labour market may be employed on a casual, fixed-term or tenured basis. While they differ in their expected job duration and effective hourly wage rate, they provide the same services.
Table 1 presents 2001 data on the labour force status of qualified teachers. It shows that there is a close correspondence between qualification and level of schooling and that unemployment among qualified teachers is low. Furthermore, high proportions of qualified teachers are not in the labour market, which probably reflects women who leave teaching, either permanently or temporarily, to have children. Of more concern is the considerable loss of qualified teachers from the profession. About twenty-seven per cent of all qualified teachers were employed in occupations other than teaching. However, teachers are not unusual in this regard, Thomas (1988), for example, found that teachers were about middle of the range in terms of graduates working outside their home occupation.
According to the data on teacher outflows presented in Table 2, about six per cent of both primary school teachers and secondary school teachers leave teaching each year. More than one in five of those leave teaching to work in another occupation. The remainder stop working, presumably for family reasons or retirement. Although the percentage moving to other occupations appears small, it is important to note that they are cumulative. Interestingly, the inflow to teaching from other occupations is larger than the outflows. The annual inflow into primary school teaching from other occupations was two per cent and three per cent for secondary school teaching (see Table 3).
Although the annual gross flows from teaching to other labour markets is only 1.6 and 1.4 per cent respectively for secondary and primary teachers, as noted above, over a quarter of those with teaching qualification are working in occupations other than teaching. Increasing supply could involve decreasing the outflow to other occupations and increasing the inflow from other occupations. This can be done by manipulating the incentives to enter or remain in teaching, such as increasing the pecuniary and non-pecuniary rewards. The primary gross flow rates may be less easy to change by direct pecuniary incentives than by non-pecuniary factors, such as flexibility in the hours of work, availability of job sharing and employer-based child care and superannuation.
Do teacher labour markets operate optimally?
This section discusses how effectively teacher labour markets operate. There are two clear indicators of inefficient operation: (a) chronic teacher shortages, and (b) excessive attrition of able teachers to other occupations.
Teacher shortages
A teacher shortage exists when employers cannot fill the desired number of positions from the start of the school year with appropriately qualified teaching staff at the current wage. A shortage may be caused by insufficient training places, explicit or implicit limits on wages paid, or poor and inaccurate information provided to potential applicants.
State governments expend considerable resources across Australia to regularly assess whether teaching markets are or will be in shortage, surplus or balance. In most states, market demand and supply questionnaires are administered to principals on a regular basis. Unfortunately, many of the questions used do not provide consistent...
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