2023-08-28 05:12:48
One in nine children will start the coming school year without a teacher, warns the General Education Union (AOb). Although many schools have looked for solutions during the summer holidays, the teacher shortage is far from being eliminated.
In het kort
- Een op de negen kinderen begint dit schooljaar zonder leraar.
- Scholen nemen noodmaatregelen, maar dit zijn geen oplossingen voor de lange termijn.
- De overheid moet volgens de AOb kijken naar hogere salarissen en minder werkdruk.
Now that children in the Central Netherlands have been going to school for a week and the South region is returning to school today, the teacher shortage is becoming painfully clear once more.
Many schools have come up with temporary solutions in recent weeks, such as putting an unauthorized person in front of a class or merging classes. Sometimes schools opt for emergency solutions such as a four-day school week because they simply don’t have anyone who can teach.
“But that doesn’t make the teacher shortage any smaller,” says Floor de Booys of the AOb. “These are emergency measures of schools that have to get their timetables done. No long-term solutions.”
‘Don’t forget that you have to mark sixty tests’
The government now has to turn a number of buttons to find a real solution, says De Booys. Because the quality of education is deteriorating rapidly now that tens of thousands of vacancies cannot be filled structurally.
According to the AOb, this starts with good salaries. Because if you want to attract new teachers, you have to be able to offer a salary that allows them to pay the fixed costs.
But it also concerns, for example, the workload, which is only increasing due to the shortage. “Young teachers who are just starting out are quickly overworked due to the excessive workload,” says De Booys. “Many people think: what does it matter whether you have a class of thirty or sixty children? But don’t forget that you also have to mark sixty tests. And then there is no room for the individual at all.”
‘You can’t solve this problem during the summer holidays’
“It’s a long-term problem,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Education. “You can’t just solve that during the summer holidays.”
The AOb hopes that the new cabinet will get to work. “We want more structural improvements. In recent decades there has been no strong policy to solve the teacher shortage,” says De Booys.
The government can no longer wait to intervene, said outgoing minister Mariëlle Paul (Primary and Secondary Education) last week. The outgoing cabinet will not deal with many subjects and will therefore pass on to the next cabinet. But according to Paul, the fall of the cabinet should not be a reason to wait with measures once morest the teacher shortage.
The minister expects that many MPs agree with her and will therefore allow the outgoing cabinet to continue to make policy in this area.
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