The Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes to Teaching Profession, the Case of Estonia

Abstract

The general ageing of population is reflected at schools similarly to the society as a whole.The averageag eof teachers is growing andyoung people do not find the teaching career attractive enough to pursue. This is leading to the situatio nwhere the schools may lack teachers in 10-15 years’ time. The aim of th ecurrent study was to explore the18-19-year-old students’ perceptions and attitudes to the teaching profession in the case of Estonia. 275 students were questioned to explore the popularity of the teaching profession. The results revealed that although the students value teachers’ job highly, they consider it a hard, underpaidandlow-challenging job.