Private provision of teaching services

Private provision of teaching services: Exploring trends and developments in temporary teachers in the Netherlands

In recent decades, involvement of the private sector in the provision of educational goods and services has reached unprecedented levels. One form of private sector involvement in education that has emerged in various contexts consists of the private sector practice of providing teaching services to public education. The alleged increase of temporary teachers that are sourced by private employment agencies has generated a heated debate about its benefits and pitfalls. At the same time, little is known about the scope of the private teacher employment industry and the composition of the temporary teacher workforce. Using a large and representative labor survey administered by the Central Bureau of Statistics Netherlands, we provide context for the discussion and examine the scale and development of temporary teaching in the Netherlands. We furthermore depict characteristics of temporary teachers and their jobs. We find that the amount and share of temporary teachers in primary and secondary education more than doubled during the last decade. Moreover, we show that teachers who are relatively young, male and have a migration background are more likely to take up temporary teaching. Our study also shows that temporary teachers work less hours and, on average, earn less. Based on these findings, policy implications and promising future lines of inquiry are formulated.

About the speakers:

Tom Stolp is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Educational and Family Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market at Maastricht University. He holds a PhD in Economics from Maastricht University. His research focusses on labor economics and applied econometrics with an emphasis on teacher labor markets.

Marjolein Camphuijsen is as an assistant professor at the Department of Educational and Family Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She holds a PhD in sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research focus is on global education policy, accountability reforms, the commercialization of education, policy enactment, and the effects of public policy on social and educational inequalities.