No. 2/2024: Teacher demand, teacher education, and teacher shortages. A new data set 1861-2024 for Norway

Abstract

This paper documents the construction of a historical data set for Norwegian compulsory education covering more than 160 years from 1861 to 2024. The data include the number of students and teachers, teacher shortages measured by the share of teachers without the formal qualifications determined by law, and the number of admitted students and graduates from teacher education institutions. In addition to the national time series, we also present panel data at the county level at a five-year frequency covering the period 1870-1935. The construction of the data series is based on a historical description of the development of the compulsory education system, including school finance and teacher wage-setting institutions, in addition to the system for teacher education. The School Act of 1860 required that teachers should have formal teacher education or similar qualifications in order to be appointed to permanent teaching positions. Variants of this rule have been a legal constraint since 1860. The data constructed in this paper provides the basis for more detailed empirical analyses of the relationship between teacher shortages, fluctuations in teacher demand, and teacher supply as determined by the number of graduates from teacher education institutions.