News item | 10-05-2023 | 07:00
Employees in primary schools and secondary education will soon be given a permanent contract after a maximum of one year if they perform well. This is an important part of the Strategic Personnel Policy bill, the internet consultation of which starts today. With this, Minister Wiersma is responding to a widely supported call from the House of Representatives. In the future, at least 80% of the staff at every school must also be permanent employees and there will be a maximum on the hiring of freelancers and temporary workers.
The Strategic Personnel Policy bill encourages school boards to look further ahead in their personnel policy, to provide better guidance to starting teachers and to pay more attention to issues such as career opportunities and workload. Education ministers Robbert Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) and Dennis Wiersma (Primary and Secondary Education) are making it more attractive to opt for a job in education. The ministers also want to prevent school employees from leaving education and that there are constantly changing faces in front of the class. This creates more stability in a school and in the classroom, something that benefits both teachers and students. The bill is aimed at primary education, secondary education and partly at MBO. The law is planned to come into force in 2024.
Minister Wiersma: “We do everything we can to recruit and retain teachers and other school personnel. Salaries have been increased and the workload is reduced, so that there is more time to follow courses or training, to prepare lessons or to give extra attention to students who can use it best. This bill adds two important things: more guidance and a better legal position. This is going well in many schools, but I still hear too many stories from teachers who go from one temporary contract to another. Or people who work for a few hours at several schools everywhere and have to scrape together a full-time job in that way. Then the fun is quickly over. No one is allowed to leave education against his will. We really need everyone!”
Specifically for primary and secondary education, the draft bill contains a number of labor law measures. From now on, qualified teaching staff will receive a permanent contract after a maximum of one year. In addition, school boards must ensure that at least 80% of the staff have an employment contract for an indefinite period. And in the new situation, new employees will in principle have a contract for four or five days a week (minimum 0.8 fte). Small contracts are only possible if a teacher chooses to do so, or if a school has compelling arguments, for example because there is not enough work for a full-time teacher for a specific subject. In addition, external hiring is also limited. As soon as the law comes into effect, a school may spend a maximum of 5% of its budget (lumpsum) on freelancers and temporary workers. The changes in employment law do not apply to MBO, because the labor market for MBO teachers is incomparable.
The bill improves the position of staff in schools. The Education Inspectorate and the Education Council previously concluded that too many schools pay insufficient attention to strategic personnel policy. The bill obliges boards and schools to actively work on this, not only on paper but also in practice. This concerns, for example, the proper training and supervision of all staff, career development and professionalisation, attention to performance interviews and periodic measurement of employee satisfaction.
Internet consultation
The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science invites stakeholders to respond to the bill. Suggestions are used to improve the law. The legislative proposal then goes via the Council of Ministers to the Council of State and then to the House of Representatives and the Senate. You can respond until June 18, 2023 via internet consultation strategic personnel policy education.