2023-06-01 15:29:57
Today, Thursday, recreational educators demonstrated in Vienna and Salzburg once morest a planned reform of their job profile. A draft law by the Ministry of Education, which is still under discussion, provides that they will become “assistant pedagogues”, also be employed in the learning part of all-day schools and switch to a different salary scheme. The Matura is to become a prerequisite for the training, the duration of which is to be halved.
In Vienna, the works council of “Bildung im Zentrum” (BiM), which organizes the leisure time part of 142 public elementary schools, called for a public works meeting at Stephansplatz at 3 p.m. and a subsequent demonstration march to the Ministry of Education. 2,000 employees – supported by parents and children – followed the call according to the police and organizers. The demonstrators warned that the reform would bring a deterioration not only for the leisure educators themselves but for the entire educational profession. “We’re not assistants, we’re a separate profession!” emphasized BiM works council chair Selma Schacht, who announced further resistance to the planned reform. An action week starting June 12 is currently being prepared.
From 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., a rally organized by the works council of the Salzburg “Association for Leisure Care” and the GPA trade union took place on Mozart Square in Salzburg’s old town. According to GPA Salzburg Managing Director Michael Huber, around 50 people took part. Leisure time educators should take to the streets in Carinthia tomorrow, Friday, and in Styria on June 15th.
According to the “BiM” works council, which represents around 2,300 leisure time educators in Vienna, the planned reform would bring salary cuts of up to a fifth, “nonsensical entry hurdles”, a deterioration in training, an unclear employment law situation and mean the end for the Recreational Education Provider. The Austrian social economy (SWÖ) criticized the fact that the education departments of the federal states should be directly responsible for the offer in the new model instead of supporting organizations such as welfare organisations, people’s aid or children’s friends. The reform would endanger “a perfectly functioning system”.
However, the SPÖ federal education organization fears that the reform would mean less holiday care and a departure from interlinked teaching in all-day schools. In Vienna, which already has a well-organized system of all-day care, the reform would be “an enormous deterioration”. The Viennese SPÖ has therefore under started a petition.
The professional group of leisure time educators was created ten years ago in order to be able to cover the personnel requirements for the expansion of school day care despite a shortage of teachers. Recreational educators are “only” responsible for organizing leisure time. During the individual learning time, in which the students are supported with their homework, only teachers and educators are currently allowed to be deployed.
The draft reform now envisages that from autumn 2024 the two job profiles of leisure educators and educators will be replaced by “assistant educators” who can be used in the entire care part of all-day schools and even be allowed to lead them. They should also be usable in movement units and interdisciplinary units in the summer school. In the new model, the Matura should be the entry requirement for the training as an assistant educator, the duration is halved compared to the leisure pedagogue training with 30 ECTS. In addition, the new professional group should have its own salary table in teacher service law and a teaching obligation of 32 hours per week.
Green education spokeswoman Sibylle Hamann recently defended the reform once morest criticism. The plan is to upgrade the previous recreational educators, there should be no deterioration. In addition, we are still in the negotiations.
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