Teacher education and early teaching career

Abstract

This paper investigates the early working careers of graduates from teacher education using Norwegian register data. The longitudinal data follows the individuals up to 12 years after graduation. The analysis is on net attrition since mobility both out of and into teacher positions is taken into account. The findings reveal a gradual net attrition from teacher positions of about 1.3 percentage points yearly, starting 1–3 years after graduation. Some of the attrition is to leadership positions in education, but the main attrition is to jobs outside education. The attrition is mainly among males and graduates with relatively high measured academic ability, and it differs greatly across teacher education types. The differences in the probability of teaching related to gender and academic ability are low shortly after graduation, but increase over time. Teacher education graduates for secondary schooling work as teachers to the lowest degree. These systematic patterns are related to both the demand and supply side of the teacher labour market.