The supply of teachers in Sweden is seen today as a challenge of historic proportions (Ber-tilsson, 2018). However, the lack of teachers is not only a Swedish problem, but exists largely in all European countries (Federičová, 2020) and in the USA (Garcia & Weiss, 2020). The proportion of fully trained teachers in Sweden needs to increase by just over 50% until 2035. The shortage of certified teachers varies greatly between school forms, be-tween 25 and 85%, where the largest shortage is within special schools. The imbalance will thus continue for many years to come. The variation between schools is great. Findings in-dicate that one of the problems for schools is not a shortage of teachers coming into the sys-tem, but that many of the newly graduated teachers do not choose to go into teaching at all or leave after just a few years (Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2017). Teacher shortage can be traced back at least 50 years and that the causes are many and complex, for example many different reforms, deteriorating conditions, low status of the profession and New Public Management as a management philosophy. The possibilities to solve the problems in the long term are several: higher wages, better working conditions, strengthened professional identity, higher status, and flexible ways to study to become a teacher. Analysis of the situa-tion have shown the following:1) Paradoxically, every educational policy reform in Sweden seems create even greater degree of problems with teacher supply. 2) The dominant man-agement philosophies, New Public Management, must be re-evaluated in relation to the school and its activities. 3) A broad anchoring with all significant relevant actors is needed to meet the internal and external challenges that exist for Swedish schools and for to be able to remedy the teacher shortage (Boström et al. 2021). Drawing on Bacchi's (2009) critical policy analysis What’s the Problem Represented to be (WPR) this paper analyses national and regional actors' perceptions of the problem in the light of previous research in the light of previous research and in relation to international findings, national and regional stakeholders' perceptions of the problem and its consequences.

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