Over the course of the next ten years, Northern Norway will need at least 4,000 new teachers. In addition, the proportion of unqualified teachers is higher in the north than in the rest of the country.
The Ministry of Education estimates that Northern Norway will need 4,000 teachers to replace unqualified workers and teachers who will retire during the coming decade, wrote Aftenposten newspaper.
Another problem is that the study places available in primary and secondary education in Northern Norway are not filled.
Minister Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, said that there is a need for government action to create additional scholarships, and recruitment in order to do something about the lack of teachers in the three northernmost counties.
‘There are great distances between areas of population, decentralized schools and many small schools, and perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that, historically, there has been a weaker tradition of higher education here than in other parts of the country’, he added, to explain why the education system in northern Norway is struggling with teacher recruitment.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
