Author(s): Khadija Alhumaid
The dwindling number of qualified educators poses an international problem of epidemic proportions. With technology as a catalyst and more lucrative careers emerging daily, today’s university students are less likely to choose education as a career path. Current teacher shortages and lack of teacher credentials put future generations’ educational achievement at risk. Studies show a major decline in the number of college applicants targeting education as a field in many countries, including the United Arab Emirates. The lack of male and female applicants in the UAE drove governmental universities to close their education college departments. This study targeted Emirati students in an attempt to understand the reasoning behind their shift away from education as a specialty. The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed methods research design to simultaneously collect quantitative and qualitative data. Results revealed that in the UAE, parental influence and cultural background heavily influence the Emirati students’ career path choices. Lack of awareness of the UAE’s educational vision and potential cause unwillingness of Emirati students to join educational faculties. Results also revealed that institutional reasons have the biggest impact on students’ unwillingness to join the educational sector, followed by professional reasons, economic reasons, and social reasons respectively. To change that, the UAE needs to raise awareness about its needs and vision for the educational sector, as well as provide monetary and professional incentives for potential practitioners. It also needs to establish some institutional reforms to ease teaching for current and future teachers.