Abstract
Today, the traditional teacher probation system has become firmly established in West Germany. Students who want to be teachers will receive a formal education for at least 3 or 4 years in universities and for about 2 years during a probation's period. On the other hand, there are so many "unemployed teachers". They can not be adopted in spite of possessing a license and their willingness to teach. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of the teacher education system in West Germany from the view of the "teacher unemployment" problem. Analyzing the teacher education system and facts around it lead to the following conclusins as follows: (1) Teacher candidates need to pass a First State Examination after studying in the university and a Second State Examination after probation's period. Both tests do not function to select some formal teachers. (2) Since 1980, because of the reduction in the number of employed teachers, new students or classes for teacher education have continued decreasing. That also creates a reduction in successful candidates in the First State Examination and the Second State Examination. The number of successful candidate is mainly determined by the number of new student in university. (3) While the reduction of the number of employed teachers, the number of teacher applicants has been continuously increasing. The rate of employment has been declining. That means there has been an even greater growth in"unemployed teachers". (4) Because of the sharp drop in the number of employed teachers, the average age of school teachers has been ascending and the rate of young teachers has declined relatively. Some predictions say that there will be a shortage of teachers in the future. (5) Persons concerned at the university maintain that a big increase in the number of employed teachers has to be realized. They have some proposals for increasing the demand for teachers, and one of them is the reform of the probation's system.
