Moral distress, speed policies, and leaving the public school to stay a teacher

Denmark will have a serious shortage of teachers in the public schools in the coming years (Damvad Analytics, 2021), and it is already now difficult to recruit educated teachers for vacant positions, which increases the percentage of uneducated teaching staff to an alarming extent (Danmarks Lærerforening, 2019). However, there is actually no shortage of educated teachers in Denmark. The problem is that only 60% of them are working in public schools (Pihl & Lykketoft, 2021), and newly educated teachers are leaving the public schools faster than earlier (Klarskov et al., 2024). It is therefore crucial to find out why teachers are leaving public schools, and what can be done to make them want to stay (Plauborg et al., 2022).