There will be an action in secondary education on Wednesday. of the General Education Association. For less work pressure. I’ll say it briefly, because I don’t get the impression that it is very much alive among teachers, although I rarely come across a teacher who does not say that he is groaning under too much work pressure.
Negotiations on a collective labor agreement for secondary education are difficult. In October 2021, a modest salary increase of 1.8 percent was secured. The VO council is now proposing a ‘wage adjustment’ of 3 percent – a joke, because inflation is now 9 percent. The cabinet has released 300 million euros to reduce the workload, but the school administrators – united in the Secondary Education Council – and the trade union do not agree on how to spend it. The administrators want school leaders to determine with the teacher teams how the money is spent, the AOb wants individual rights for employees, laid down in the collective labor agreement, such as 60 optional hours per year for each teacher, to be spent at their own discretion, and a maximum teaching task. of 24 hours a week.
Is the AOb going to campaign vigorously on these points? How much salary increase do they want exactly, given the enormous inflation? No, the union calls on members to talk to their school management and school administrators tomorrow afternoon. Or no, to ‘challenge your board or school management’ to a discussion about your wishes. To this end, they stop classes for no less than an hour and a half, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. That will teach them, the supreme powers.
Not that the AOb has any faith in the school administrators for whose attention they beg. In an opinion piece in The Telegraph , under the bold headline ‘Our tax money does not end up well in the classroom’, Vice-President Jelmer Evers recently explained clearly why he is vainly talking ‘the blisters on the tongue’ to ‘get money where it belongs: with the teachers’. This is not new, he knows (and they know at the Ministry of Education and at the Court of Audit). Since the school boards became ‘autonomous’ in the late 1990s, Evers explains once again, extra money invariably disappears into the mouth of the ‘lumpsum’, which boards spend as they see fit.
In the more than thirty years that the government has shifted responsibility to school boards, student performance has plummeted, salaries lagged behind other sectors, work pressure increased and teachers’ job satisfaction diminished. No coincidence.
Then why, dear Jelmer, dear AOb, this sugar-sweet promotion? Why vie for attention from those who mistreat you? They are not even the real employers, but only intermediaries, united in a self-appointed body, the VO Council. Please break this deadlock of endless complaining that as a teacher you always fall short when negotiating with that Council. Negotiate with the employer itself, the ministry. Demand a real salary increase, on top of inflation – as the small Leraren in Actie does –, smaller classes and fewer teaching hours per week, laid down in a collective labor agreement. Otherwise, flatten things out. There are many teachers, without them it is impossible. Use that power.
The argument that reducing teaching hours harms quality is nonsense. In the OECD countries that perform best in the PISA surveys, students receive fewer lessons. In Estonia, the top scoring European country, that is 609 hours per year, with us 720 (Data OECD). Less but better lessons, more time for preparation. You will only attract young teachers with less work pressure and a good salary. And perhaps, under more attractive conditions, teachers are willing to work a few more hours a week.