Municipalities fund teacher training as shortage worsens

Municipalities across Denmark are investing their own money in teacher training as the shortage of qualified primary school teachers grows, DR reports. They are creating positions where student teachers work in local schools while completing their education.

Fewer people are entering teacher training, dropout rates are high, and many current teachers are approaching retirement. Martin Damm, mayor of Kalundborg and deputy chairman of Local Government Denmark, said the country would lack qualified primary school teachers both now and in the future unless action was taken.

“This is not something that can wait for lengthy political negotiations at Christiansborg,” said Jens Ejner Christensen, mayor of Vejle Municipality.

The positions are known in some municipalities as school-based teacher training and elsewhere as teacher trainee positions. The aim is to give students early experience in the classroom while encouraging them to remain in the municipality after qualifying.

Shortage expected to grow

According to Danish University Colleges, Denmark was short of 4,300 teachers last year, and the figure is expected to rise significantly.

Admissions to teacher training have fallen by 28 per cent over the past five years. Fifteen per cent of those who began the programme in 2024 had dropped out by last year, while more than one in three who started in 2019 had left by the same point.

Almost one in five newly qualified teachers who take a job in a primary school leave within three years. Nearly one in four leave within five years, according to Danish University Colleges and the Economic Council of the Labour Movement, based on figures from Statistics Denmark.

Municipalities invest in recruitment

Twenty student teachers will begin teaching two days a week in schools in Kalundborg, Holbæk, Lejre and Odsherred municipalities as the new school year begins. The municipalities will divide the students between them.

Odsherred Municipality will invest almost six million kroner in the project over the coming years. The number of student teachers is expected to reach 16 by 2029.

“We are doing this because we want to have more qualified teachers,” said Hanne Pigonska, mayor of Odsherred.

She said too few teachers were applying to the municipality’s schools, even though it was not facing an immediate shortage.

Only three out of four teachers in Odsherred had a formal teacher education, according to a regional comparison by the Economic Council of the Labour Movement based on Statistics Denmark figures. On one of Kalundborg Municipality’s staffrooms, one in five teachers was not formally trained.

Unqualified teachers are particularly common in Zealand, the comparison found.

“We have to do something to ensure good teaching in our schools,” Damm said.

Teacher shortages have been a political priority for some time. The government’s policy platform also promises “a targeted effort to retain and recruit more teachers for primary schools”.

Damm said the municipalities’ decision to act themselves showed that existing measures had not been fully effective.

School-based teacher training is not new, but the number of positions linking student teachers to municipal primary schools from the start of their education has increased in recent years. The model is intended to help aspiring teachers understand classroom life earlier and reduce the “practice shock” that can occur when academic theory is first applied to teaching pupils with different needs.