Brain drain? Recruitment and retention of high quality teachers in Norway

Abstract

This paper examines whether graduates of high academic quality (as measured by their university or university college Grade Point Average or GPA) are recruited to and remain in school jobs. Extensive data from Norwegian administrative registers are used. The analyses show that graduates from specialised and concurrent general teacher programmes go into and remain in school employment to an overwhelming extent irrespective of academic quality. Among those with less specialised university degrees, however, high‐GPA graduates are considerably less likely to take a school job and they are also more likely to leave. Both groups of graduates generally earn more in non‐school employment, but this earnings differential is unrelated to GPA. Economic factors therefore cannot explain why high‐GPA graduates more rarely enter and more often leave school employment.