SALT LAKE CITY ― Utah’s public schools need more teachers to fill their classrooms, but state colleges say young students are showing hardly any interest in the profession.
Though undergraduate degrees from Utah colleges have grown 25 percent in the past decade, teaching diplomas have grown only a fraction of that rate with only a 5 percent increase in the same period, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Last year, the Utah System of Higher Education graduated 1,350 teachers with bachelor’s degrees.
“I can’t produce enough teachers for the need,” said Maria Franquiz, dean of the University of Utah’s College of Education.
Utah’s public school population has grown by 23 percent in the past decade. A 2007 state study found new teachers often leave the field within three years and predicted that half of Utah’s teachers will be eligible for retirement by 2017.
Utah Education Association President Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh says education leaders are struggling with a lack of interest in teaching, and the lowest per-student funding in the nation.
“We have a serious crisis on our hands,” she said.
