Learning to teach
Every year, dozens of TU Delft students train to becosecondary Every year, dozens of TU Delft students train to become secondary school teachers on the Master’s in Science Education.
Secondary schools have great difficulty finding teachers for a number of key subjects such as mathematics, chemistry and physics. No-one really knows the scale of the teacher shortage. But if nothing is done to tackle the problem, there will be a shortage of 700 FTEs in 2022 and 1200 FTEs by 2027, according to the Ministry of Education.
TU Delft is doing its bit to reduce this deficit with its Master’s degree in Science Education. The programme trains students to teach computer science, physics, chemistry, mathematics and design and research. Universities of technology are the main suppliers of STEM teachers.
However, according to Maartje van den Bogaard, Director of Studies for Science Education & Communication, that’s not very many. “Each year, we deliver around thirty Master's graduates, qualified to teach at upper secondary level (HAVO/VWO, ed.). We also offer a minor and an education module to get as many qualified teachers as possible into the classroom. Both tracks last six months and train students to become lower secondary school teachers (HAVO/VWO/VMBO-t).”
Curiosity
However, these students don’t always go on to forge a career in education. “Research by my colleagues Begüm Coskun and Alma Kuijpers shows, for example, that students often choose the minor because they are curious about education and the teaching profession. Some students want to improve their presentation and communication skills or think it looks good on their CV.”
According to Van den Bogaard, the fact that many students don’t go into teaching is due to the poor reputation of the profession. “If we want more teachers, we really need to work on that. But we can’t solve this social problem on our own. What we can do and do indeed do, is make sure that students enjoy teaching. To do that, we work with schools that have an induction period for newly-qualified teachers. So starters have fewer teaching hours and more support.”
For now, Van de Bogaard is focusing on expanding the education programme in Delft. “A second intake was introduced for the Master’s in February 2019 and we have the full support of the Executive Board.” We are the only TU Delft programme that’s allowed to grow.”