All secondary school boards in Brabant will immediately stop hiring temporary agency workers. They do not think it is possible for employment agencies to steal teachers from schools and then offer them as a substitute. “We will then lose sixty percent more money. This is not possible with money intended for education. We are done with it,” says Martin van den Berg, of the Christiaan Huygens College in Eindhoven, speaking on behalf of all school boards.
Schools normally use substitute workers to replace during maternity leave or illness, for example. The lessons can then continue. In Brabant, there are hundreds of temporary employees. But according to Van den Berg, employment agencies such as Monday are working hard to remove teachers from the schools themselves. “Of course that is not possible. It cannot be the case that you turn the teacher shortage into your business by taking them off the market and then renting them out to us again. With a good storage.”
“Money that is meant for education is just leaking out.”
According to Van den Berg, advertising campaigns, but also the schools themselves, are asking whether teachers want to switch to the employment agency. “I think it’s inappropriate. I know they are openly recruiting now. They do this through the grapevine or they approach employees directly with the question whether they will come and work for the employment agency. They are offered everything. I see that my costs will increase by sixty percent as a result. Money is just leaking out. That is for education. Not to fill employment agencies.”
So the Brabant schools will stop. They write this in a letter to the employment agencies that supply teaching staff. All secondary schools, there are dozens of them, have signed the letter. The solution, they say, is to simply employ the teachers. “Let them come. We just need them. Brabant is now making a statement, but this is happening throughout the Netherlands.”
Even if there is a flu wave, the schools will no longer hire temporary workers. Another solution has been found. “We ask people who are retiring if they can still call. We also have them in the classroom. We’ll solve it with that. Sometimes we put a third or fourth year student in front of the class, who is almost finished with the course. This is also possible under certain conditions. We also ask employees if they want to work more temporarily.”
“It concerns the entire province. More than a hundred thousand students.”
All school boards in Brabant have signed this letter. “Little ones such as a practical school with two hundred students to OMO with 65,000 students. It concerns the entire province. More than a hundred thousand students.” With the statement, the schools hope to be able to make a change: “If you keep your back straight and decide not to hire anymore, then those teaching staff will enter the market and then you can simply offer them a job.”
The Brabant Boards for Secondary Education hope that this decision will also be adopted by all other boards for secondary and primary schools in the Netherlands.