Happy to be teaching?

Original title: Gelukkig voor de klas?

If we are to believe reports in the media, working as a secondary school teacher is no fun. High pressure of work, low salaries, teaching standards imposed by others and interfering, inadequate school managements all combine to dent people's enthusiasm for the profession - or so we are led to believe. But is this picture accurate? What do teachers themselves think?

This publication allows teachers to talk about their work. The Netherlands Institute for Social Research/SCP polled a representative sample of more than 2,700 secondary school teachers; they provided background information and expressed their views on their profession and the environment in which they work.

The teachers talk about things such as what made them choose their profession, how they see their role as teachers and the pleasures and frustrations they derive from their work. They also talk about cooperation with colleagues and the relationship with school management, and give their views on the quality of teaching at their school.

Overall, teachers are found to be reasonably contented in their work, though there are criticisms. The data also show that teaching as a profession is changing, as the older generation of teachers make way for a younger cohort who have been trained differently, consequently take different qualities into the school and have different ideas about teaching.