Teacher shortage in primary education

Known criticisms of this statistic

Every statistic embodies method choices, and the substantive critiques of those choices are part of understanding the number. These are documented positions — each linked to who makes it. Listing a criticism is not endorsing it; we take no side.

• Administrative data tell a different story: the national pupil-to-teacher ratio stayed roughly stable at about 18 through 2006–2021 while the survey-based shortage rose — suggesting the survey captures unequal distribution and school-level distress more than a net national deficit. The authors also note education has no agreed definition of 'staff shortage' at all.

  — Van Wickeren, Van Dijk & Schellekens, in ESB (2025) · ESB: Het lerarentekort is geen landelijk maar een schoolspecifiek probleem

• Response is asymmetric: about 97% of big-five-city schools answer (they are covenant-bound) against about 63% elsewhere, and the two surveys were not run identically. The national figure is unbiased only if the schools that don't answer resemble the schools that do — an untested assumption the publishers themselves state.

  — OCW/Centerdata (the survey's own documentation) · OCW in cijfers: landelijk beeld tekorten po

• The 'hidden shortage' component counts situations the school itself deems undesirable — unqualified staff, split classes, career-switchers teaching solo — mixing an objective staffing gap with each school's own judgment of what is acceptable.

  — Van Wickeren et al. (ESB, 2025); category definitions from OCW/Centerdata · OCW in cijfers: definitie verborgen tekorten

Source & method

Raw snapshot (JSON) · every observation keeps its retrieval timestamp and revision history in the public database.