The proposed paper aims to analyse the current policies on teacher shortages in Austria by presenting and discussing its history, possible causes, and current policy measures. While the first part of the paper focusses on a policy analysis based on a media analysis and statistical data, the second part uses recent survey data to examine one of the measures to remedy the teacher shortage, namely the early teaching of not yet fully qualified student-teachers.

As in many European countries (Eurydice, 2021), acute teacher shortage is not a new, but an increasingly urgent challenge for the Austrian education system. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the teacher shortage was a topic of discussion in the media, however, no long-term strategy was developed (Lassnigg, 2022). In 2022, the pandemic and subsequent general labour shortage had exacerbated the situation (Huber & Lusnig, 2022), and the Austrian Ministry of Education launched a package of policies to counter teacher shortage. In its self-definition, this initiative is the ‘largest teacher offensive of the Second Republic’ and aims to redefine the teacher’s professional role and to shorten the bachelor’s phase of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) from eight to six semesters with increasing practical course content (BMBWF n.d.). While measures that were previously employed to compensate for fluctuating teacher supply—e.g. overtime work, restrictions on part-time employment, and re-employment of retired teachers—are being continued, an important aspect of this initiative is the attempt to attract ‘new target groups for the teaching profession’ (BMBWF n.d.). As a result, there are three groups of not fully qualified teachers working in Austrian schools:

(1) Special contracts allow vacancies to be filled by people for whom no prior qualifications are defined through special contracts limited to one year. As long as there is need, these contracts can be extended for one year at a time. While ‘special contracts’ have been a long-established legal option for reacting flexibly to teacher shortages, the obligation to fulfil a specified number of ECTS in professional development courses has recently been introduced, opening up the possibility of longer-term employment.

(2) ‘Career changer’ (Quereinsteiger): In the 2022 legislation, this term is used for programmes that enable graduates of a university degree course (with at least three years of professional experience) to qualify as teachers in a corresponding secondary school subject. As soon as their employment by a school has been settled, ‘career changers’ receive some professional training through a part-time course alongside their work.

(3) Teacher education students: While bachelor’s graduates of ITE courses are employed under normal contracts (but they have to complete their qualification through a teacher education master course within eight years), teacher education students are increasingly employed as teachers before completing their bachelor’s degree. While, in principle, authorities and teacher education institutions agree that employment should take place after completing four semesters at the earliest and with a reduced teaching commitment (max. 50%), in practice, these principles are not met in an increasing number of cases due to the pressing teacher shortage.

However, the latter measure carries the risk of addressing the challenge of the teacher shortage at the expense of the student–teachers’ well-being and future career, as doing classroom teaching and studying simultaneously may come with serious challenges. Thus, we use recent survey data to analyse more thoroughly possible consequences that may accompany a premature start in the teaching career. In particular, we will discuss the specific demands student–teachers encounter both in the job and in their studies as well as the resources they may draw on and the potential repercussions on their well-being and their professionalism.

The analysis of the teacher shortage in Austria is hampered by the fact that barely any published studies on the subject by independent researchers are available. The policy analysis in the first part of the paper is based on statistical data, expert interviews, and a media analysis. For the latter, the electronic archives of two nation-wide quality newspapers (2000 – 2023 editions) were searched with the term ‘teacher shortage’ and synonyms; hits were analysed with a content analysis (Mayring, 2014). The survey data in the second part of the paper originates from an online survey addressed to all students enrolled in the Bachelor or Master phases of General Secondary Teacher Education programmes at all teacher educating universities in the Austrian regions of Upper Austria and Salzburg. Measures used in our analysis include self-constructed scales on Study satisfaction and Job satisfaction as well as existing scales on General well-being (Basler, 1999), Study exhaustion(Satow, 2012; Schaufeli et al., 1996), Job exhaustion (Schaufeli et al., 2002), Study engagement and Job engagement (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova 2006), Study resources and Job resources (Gusy & Lohmann, 2011), Study demands (Gusy, Wörfel, & Lohmann, 2016) and Job demands (Schulte, Wittner, & Kauffeld, 2021). A total of 414 students completed the online survey, with 296 students (70% from Upper Austria, 30% from Salzburg) stating that they had a job contract at a secondary school. 43% of the participants were bachelor’s students, and 57% of the students were in the master’s program. The participating ‘student–teachers’ reported an average teaching load at school of 15.42 teaching hours, ranging from 3 to 28 lessons. Moreover, 53% reported that they also teach other subjects than those they qualified for (out-of-field teaching).

There are issues arising from our policy analysis and student data which may be relevant for other European countries coping with the uncertainties of teacher shortage (Eurydice, 2021; SWK, 2023) and which may have an impact on the nature of teacher professionalism (Dumay & Burn, 2023): (De-)Qualifications of teachers; parallel structures in the qualification of teachers: The current strategy of granting entitlement to permanent employment to ‘career changers’ and teachers on special contracts via comparatively short courses without making further qualifications mandatory creates a parallel structure to the teacher training programme, undermines the quality standards of the still nascent teacher education reform, and creates a new group of significantly less qualified teachers, thereby signalling a trend towards de-qualification. Out-of-field-teaching: Although propagated as strategy to counter out-of-field teaching, there is indication that ‘career changers’ are accepted whose subject of origin (i) does not appear in the canon of secondary school subjects at all or (ii) is only equipped with a few lessons in the curriculum (as a consequence, requiring ‘career changers’ to do a certain amount of out-of-field teaching). Retention of student-teachers: Career entry is a critical phase in which important developmental tasks have to be fulfilled (Keller-Schneider et al., 2019). Taking the findings about the relationship of well-being and retention into account (Dicke et al., 2018), high levels of stress among early student–teachers may result in high drop-out rates and low retention—both at university and at work. Inequality in the school system: As staff recruitment has been decentralised to the individual school level since 2017, it may be expected that the overall number of applicants will be larger for the already advantaged academic schools (AHS and BMHS), which, consequently, will have a better likelihood of satisfying their staffing needs and attracting more highly qualified applicants.

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