Student Behavior is Increasingly Challenging for Teachers

In the School Barometer, we see that a large share of teachers is actively addressing these challenges and is committed to further developing their skills in dealing with problematic student behavior. Correspondingly, the demand for professional development is high: 47 percent would like training on “supporting students with mental health challenges,” 33 percent on “teaching students with special educational needs,” and 25 percent on “student behavior and classroom management.”

Schools play an important role in fostering social-emotional skills that support both interaction and learning. The importance of these so-called cross-cutting competencies was already highlighted in the 2024 School Barometer: when asked which skills schools should teach today to best prepare students for life, teachers most frequently named empathy, independence, and critical thinking.
In the 2026 School Barometer, we therefore examined how teachers experience the promotion of these competencies: which skills they deliberately foster in their teaching, how confident they feel in doing so, and what kind of professional development they need.

In our survey, around three quarters of teachers say that they promote at least one cross-cutting competency in their teaching. Social skills such as empathy and teamwork are mentioned most frequently, along with personal competencies such as independence and the ability to cope with frustration. The findings also show a strong willingness among teachers to pursue further training in this area (82 percent), which is encouraging.

At the same time, the School Barometer also highlights gaps: 29 percent of respondents consider their knowledge and skills for fostering cross-cutting competencies to be insufficient. In addition, structural support is often lacking: according to teachers, at 36 percent of schools the development of cross-cutting competencies is not actively supported.

Overall, the 2026 School Barometer shows that teachers are increasingly under strain in their day-to-day work. Contributing factors include diversity in classrooms, workload and time pressure, education policy frameworks and bureaucracy, as well as collaboration with parents—challenges they experience alongside problematic student behavior. At the same time, our findings make clear that teachers are not shying away from these demands. Instead, they are engaging with them, seeking further qualifications, and looking for solutions. This is both right and important. Yet as a society, we cannot leave the task of addressing these broader challenges solely to schools and their teachers. Many of the issues teachers face in their daily work—such as the effects of poverty, mental health conditions, or bureaucratic hurdles—originate outside the school system and must be addressed there.

The German School Barometer also shows that these pressures do not come without consequences for teachers. As in previous years, more than a quarter of teachers (28 percent) say they would change professions if they had the opportunity. Thirty-six percent report feeling exhausted by their work several times a week or even daily, and one in five teachers (19 percent) already feels tired when getting up in the morning and facing a school day ahead. This emotional exhaustion, which becomes evident here, can be a sign of burnout and should be taken seriously.

But what increases the risk of burnout among teachers—and more importantly, what protects them? The 2026 School Barometer provides insights here as well. Where schools face problems with violence among students, this intensifies the two burnout symptoms of “job dissatisfaction” and “emotional exhaustion.” A cooperative school culture oriented toward shared values and goals, as well as support services such as school social work, help to ease the burden on teachers. In particular, teachers who experience a cooperative school culture report significantly lower levels of exhaustion on average than those working in schools without such a culture.

Another key factor for a sustainable professional life is a strong sense of self-efficacy. Teachers who feel confident in their ability to design inclusive teaching that meets the needs of all students show fewer burnout symptoms, are less likely to consider leaving the profession, and perceive the diverse learning needs of their students as less of a burden. A strong sense of self-efficacy is also associated with a more positive attitude toward inclusion.

For the first time, the School Barometer also shows how uncertain teachers feel when dealing with political statements: almost one in five (18 percent) feels constrained by a supposed requirement of neutrality. A quarter of respondents (27 percent) mistakenly believe they are generally not allowed to express their own opinion in class. Yet teachers must be able to take a clear stance here. Their role is not to be neutral, but to demonstrate a position grounded in the principles of the German Basic Law.
We also see that AI applications are increasingly becoming part of everyday school life: the share of teachers who use AI several times a week has more than doubled since last year’s survey, reaching 25 percent. Meanwhile, 48 percent now feel confident using AI, particularly for setting tasks and planning lessons. At the same time, more than half would like targeted support and professional development opportunities.

Our surveys as part of the German School Barometer provide a representative picture of the situation at schools in Germany. Encouragingly, we can see that the majority of teachers—just as in 2024 and 2025—are satisfied with their work in 2026 (83 percent) and enjoy working at their school (89 percent). Seventy-five percent would even recommend their school as a good place to work.

These are good news. We should build on this satisfaction and finally provide meaningful support to teachers in educating future generations. This can only be achieved through shared responsibility: across society, by consistently reducing poverty and supporting families affected by it; within the education system and its support structures, through needs-based and effective professional development, well-defined multiprofessional collaboration, and high-quality advisory services—for example on topics such as democracy education and artificial intelligence. Last but not least, schools themselves must actively strengthen collaboration among staff as well as with their students, and teachers must continue to develop their skills and reflect on their own practice.