Shortage of teachers having a negative impact on performance of pupils in the last year of primary school

KUL’s Professor Kristof De Witte looked at the results of 1,159 pupils in Catholic primary schools that took standardised tests in Dutch and maths at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. Numerous international studies have shown that since 2003 the performance of pupils in Flemish education has been declining. A previous study carried out by Professor De Witte showed that the coronavirus crisis and the closure of schools that came about as part of the measures to contain the virus had an adverse effect on our children’s academic performance. In his most recent study Professor De Witte found that staff shortages in Flemish schools are also having a negative impact on children’s learning.

Compared with 2019, the year before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, children in the 6th year of primary school are now an average of 15 weeks behind in Dutch, which of course in Flemish schools is the medium of instruction and is taught as the pupils’ “mother-language”. As regards the pupils’ first foreign language French, they are currently 9 weeks behind where they were in 2019. They are 5 weeks behind with their mathematics and 4 weeks behind with science and technology compared where they were in June 2019. The only subject in which attainment has not declined is “people and society”.

Among the top 5% of most academically gifted pupils, performance in Dutch has fallen dramatically over the past three years. Professor De Witte told VRT News that “The strongest 6th year pupils now would need almost a full school year extra to reach the level the cleverest 6th year pupils were at in 2019”.

Issues with staff shortages are playing a role here “If a primary school teacher is absent a care and welfare assistant or a teaching assistant often has to stand in. This means that they have no time to offer extra support to the most vulnerable pupils or to set more challenging tasks for the most able”.

An is a member of the support staff in the nursery section of the Boodschap Institute primary school in Schaarbeek (Brussels). She told VRT News that “Last school year I was hardly able to do any support work due to the number of times I was called on to act as a stand-in. I was only to carry out my teaching support duties around one week in three”. 

Professor De Witte believes that there are other explanations for the decline in academic attainment. He suspects that parents are setting the bar lower when it comes to their expectations for their children’s performance in basic subjects such as Dutch and maths. Having a group of academically gifted pupils in a class can have a positive impact on other pupils as they, for example, ask intelligent questions and help and challenge their classmates.