An increasing proportion of early childhood education teachers increasingly lack required qualifications, according to a study by the non-profit Etla Economic Research institute.
It found that the proportion of qualified teachers had decreased in recent years, even though the total number of teachers in the field has increased.
The number of early childhood education teachers has risen by around 20 percent, but during that same period the number of teachers with qualifications had only risen by three percent.
However, the situation has been affected by the fact that a large proportion of the early childhood education programmes are in Uusimaa, home to the greater Helsinki area. That regional development has significantly impacted averages in the rest of the country, according to Aino Kalmbach, a senior researcher at Etla.
"This partly explains why the decline in the proportion of qualified teachers has been significant, even nationally, despite that the proportion of qualified teachers has remained moderately high in several regions," Kalmbach said in a press release.
Two opposing trends
Two opposing trends have resulted in increased demand for early education teachers, according to Kalmbach.
Due to Finland's declining birth rate, there are clearly fewer early education-aged children than in the past. At the same time, participation rates in early childhood education programmes have increased so significantly that it has outpaced the declining birth rate.
"Early childhood education has also increasingly shifted from family daycare settings to daycare centres, which has further increased the demand for early childhood education teachers. However, the impact of the decline in the birth rate may be seen even more clearly in the future," Kalmbach said in the release.
According to the study's findings, qualified teacher shortfalls are more acute in more heavily populated areas, where early education salaries are much lower compared to other jobs — for example in the Helsinki metropolitan area.
Etla is a private, non-profit economic research institute aiming to find how economic policy can promote competition, improve operating conditions and global competitiveness.
