Is Teaching no longer an attractive profession: Should teacher education entry requirements be lowered? Evidence from Chile

• In Event: Teacher as a profession: Measures to attract and retain more teachers

Proposal

Background
Two situations in middle-income countries highlight the importance and to some extent politicization of teacher education's role in the provision of qualified teachers: competitiveness of the country's educational system in international terms (i.e. international tests) and contribution of "good" quality education to economic growth and the solving of social problems. Hence, it was not surprising that prior to irruption of the pandemic Chilean policy discussions including newspaper headlines included strident alarm voices about the "catastrophic" lowering of intake into teacher education programmes (29% between 2018 and 2020) and its possible effects on the education system. This concern was supported by a widely publicised warning that by 2025 there would be lack of 19% prepared teachers in classrooms, in secondary and primary Education (Elige Educar, 2021).

None of the above seems new, if the situation in other parts of the world is considered. According to OECD figures (OECD,2021) there is a growing disproportion of teachers close to retirement versus teachers under 30 years of age, particularly in Italy and Portugal. Or similarly in USA (García & Weiss, 2019), Mexico (García-Poyato Falcón & Cordero Arroyo, 2019) and Colombia (Cabeza, Zapata & Lombana, 2018).

Public alarm in Chile, produced different reactions. On the one hand, spokespeople from the Teachers' Union attributed the lowering of interest in teaching to unsatisfactory teacher working conditions (Colegio de Profesores, 10 Jan 2023). On the other hand, politicians interpreted the situation as due to progressive increase in teacher education entry requirements legislated in 2016 (Ley 20.903). Such requirements were raised on the assumption that low quality teacher preparation was responsible for unsatisfactory teaching and school results as measured in national and international tests. Soon after the red light produced by teacher deficit warnings, the Chilean parliament postponed from 2023 to 2026 the deadline for fulling implementing the Law's requirements: that candidates interested in teacher education should be in the 60% or higher rank results of university entrance examination, or in the upper 20% of secondary school results (20 October, 2022, http://www.laleyaldia.cl/?p=17452).

Questioning the assumption that candidates select teacher education because it may be easier to access compared to other career options, or that they decide against it because of unsatisfactory working conditions, this study aimed to provide a better understanding of factors influencing or not school leavers' choice of teaching as their future profession.

The study
We focused the study on the traditional notion of the "motivation" as driving school-leavers' decision to enter a teacher education accredited concurrent or consecutive university program in Chile.

Motivation is broadly understood to include beliefs about the profession and its work and perceived personal capacity to engage in teaching (Expectancy-value theory, Eccles & Wingfield, 2002). More specifically motivation is affected by intrinsic (interest in the profession) and extrinsic factors (salaries, working conditions), and is adaptive or non-adaptive depending on quality of the proposed commitment (Bruinsma & Janssen, 2010). Also included as factors are self-efficacy perceptions as well as social contribution beliefs. This theoretical framework is illustrated below.
(figure 1 here)

General and specific objectives.
Our central objective was to learn about and evaluate the above factors' influence on secondary school leavers' decision to join a teacher education programme. Secondarily, we sought to assess differences in these motivating factors with school leavers interested in teaching, but who did not enrol in teacher education.

Methods
We administered an online survey on the main areas set out in the conceptual framework to 697 students who took the 2022 university entrance examination, had indicated interest in teacher education among their preferred three career choices and of which 476 (68.3%) effectively enrolled in a teacher education programme. This allowed us to compare factors influencing both types of decisions.

The survey included items covering personal, ethnic background, type of school attended (public/private), parental education level. Four specific items (5-point scales) addressed topics included in conceptual framework: (a) Importance of factors influencing career choice after completing the university entrance examination; (b) Importance of reasons for enrolling in a teacher education programme; (c) Agreement with reasons for not enrolling in a teacher education programme despite initial interest in doing so and for all, (d) Agreement with statements about teachers and their work,. In addition, the survey included two open-ended questions about their career choice.

Results
Data was analysed descriptively and by means of factor analysis. Some results are the following.
a. Importance of reasons for career selection of the group who entered a teacher education programme:
Most important reasons were related to the nature of teachers' work, working with children and adolescents, and making a social contribution. This was followed by perceived capacity to teach (former teaching experience, pleasure in teaching).

b. Importance of reasons for not selecting a teacher education programme:
Negative aspects of the profession: lower salary than for other professions; little time left for oneself; less prestigious than other professions. But degree of agreement regarding these reasons was median to low.

Conclusions
In line with other studies on why school leavers select teaching as a profession, students in this study stated the importance in their decision of factors related to the profession itself (Mn 4.439) such as the good example of a teacher, valuing work with children and adolescents and being able to make a social contribution. They gave much less importance (Mn 2.574) to factors such as longer holidays or lower demands of teacher preparation. Thus, given these responses it may be immaterial whether raising or not entry requirements would be a factor in numbers of teacher education recruits. An amusing or perhaps ironic fact is that this year 2023, teacher education enrolment for almost all specialisations increased around 69% across the country. This was especially so for Primary Education, Science and Pre-school preparation.

Author

• Beatrice Avalos, University of Chile