We still don’t know how to fix the global teacher shortage
Rigorous, independent evaluation is needed so Governments stop delivering ‘solutions’ for recruiting and retaining teachers that don't work and deliver more of those that do
Published 2 September 2025
Across the world, education systems are facing the same urgent problem: how to attract and keep teachers in the profession.
In Australia, England, Sweden and the United States, schools are grappling with shortages that undermine learning and put increasing pressure on the educators who remain.
The barriers are strikingly similar. Teachers are struggling with low pay, unsustainable workloads, high stress and a growing sense that their profession isn’t valued.
While governments have invested heavily in solutions, with initiatives including bursaries, pay rises and workload reforms, our new international study shows we still don’t know which strategies are actually making a difference.
The limits of current approaches
Our research, Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Challenges and Opportunities, reviewed government policies, union reports, academic studies and media coverage across four regions: Victoria and New South Wales in Australia, England and Scotland in the UK, Sweden and the US states of Connecticut and Maryland.
We found no shortage of initiatives.
Financial incentives like scholarships and bursaries are being used to encourage people into teaching degrees. Workload reforms aim to free up time for classroom teaching.
In some contexts, teachers can access sabbatical leave or debt forgiveness schemes if they work in disadvantaged schools.
But there’s a fundamental problem. Very few of these interventions are being systematically evaluated.
That means governments are investing significant public funding into programmes without knowing whether they work, or whether they’re making inequities worse by failing to support the schools and students who need them most.
What this looks like around the world
We found that in Australia, applications for teaching degrees have fallen by almost 20 per cent in recent years and only half of those who begin a degree end up completing it.
Attrition is also high, particularly in rural and remote communities, where schools find it hardest to attract staff.
Sweden faces similar issues, with teachers reporting heavy workloads, poor pay and work-related stress. Violence towards teachers has also become an increasing concern, prompting government inquiries.
In the US, shortages are most severe in low-performing districts.
In Connecticut, more than half of students come from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds, yet only around one in ten teachers share those backgrounds – a significant gap that affects representation and equity in schools.
England continues to face high turnover among early-career teachers, with many leaving long before retirement age. While bursaries have been introduced, evidence suggests they may not be high enough to make a lasting difference.
Despite these different contexts, the underlying story is the same: teachers are overworked, underpaid and under-recognised and the solutions being trialled aren’t being robustly assessed.
Why evaluation matters
The lack of evaluation isn’t just a technical oversight, it has real consequences.
Without evidence of effectiveness, governments risk funnelling money into short-term fixes that don’t solve the deeper issues. Worse, they risk perpetuating strategies that don’t work for the schools most in need.
For example, while financial incentives can help attract teachers into hard-to-staff schools, studies suggest that teachers often leave once the payments stop.
Workload reforms, meanwhile, tend to address symptoms rather than the systemic causes of burnout, like administrative demands and accountability pressures.
The result is a cycle of well-intentioned but patchy solutions that fail to stop teachers leaving the profession.
Building a stronger evidence base
There are promising signs of change.
In the US, a new $US10 million research centre, the CALDER Recruitment & Retention Centre has been established to systematically evaluate teacher recruitment and retention initiatives across nine states.
In England, the Education Endowment Foundation is funding new projects to explore options for flexible working.
But these examples are rare. Our review highlights the need for more rigorous, independent evaluation of workforce strategies, particularly in contexts like rural schools where shortages are most acute, and priority subject areas like STEM and special education.
Building this evidence base is essential not only for making policy more effective but also to make sure funding is going to the schools and students who need it most.
Rethinking how we value teachers
Ultimately, the problem is bigger than any single initiative. Low pay, heavy workloads and poor professional status are not just recruitment challenges; they are signals that teaching is undervalued as a profession.
Without addressing this deeper cultural issue, no amount of bursaries or workload reforms will be enough to keep great teachers in classrooms.
Where to from here?
Education systems cannot afford to lose more teachers. The quality of teaching is the single most important in-school factor shaping student outcomes and shortages are already hitting hardest in disadvantaged communities.
If we want to secure a strong and sustainable workforce, governments must address the underlying conditions driving teachers out of the profession and invest in building the evidence base to understand what works.
It’s not enough to keep trying new incentives and hoping they’ll stick. We need rigorous evaluation, smarter investment and a renewed commitment to valuing teaching as a profession.
Teachers are at the heart of every education system. Supporting them effectively isn’t just a policy challenge, it’s a global priority.