Teacher finds long-term teacher shortages unacceptable: ‘When I’m sick there are 32 children at home’ | Interior

“Recently I was ill, for the first time in my career,” says teacher Dorien König of the Montessori School Rhenen about the consequences of the teacher shortage in practice. “So there are 32 children at home. We did everything we could to arrange a replacement, but that turned out to be impossible in practice.”

Rhenen is now a small town in the central Netherlands, but schools here are also struggling to complete the occupation for next year. König: ,,We succeeded, but it takes more and more effort. When I read that the shortages will only continue to increase after 2030, I do wonder how to proceed.”

This worrying prognosis was stated in an exploration by the Education Council on Thursday. He came up with ‘painful’ proposals to quickly reduce the teacher shortages. Options are scrapping teaching time and better organizing work in schools. The following must apply: the teacher only does what he or she is good at, all other tasks are for support staff, parents and volunteers.

Britt (39) has two children aged 6 and 11 at primary school in Veenendaal and is an active volunteer at school. She mainly focused on shortening the teaching time. “I thought: Here we go again, applying for after-school care again, extra costs again.” In addition, Britt believes that with this option the teaching profession loses even more status. “Then you actually say: it can also be done in four days.”

The mother notes that teachers should be better supported. “A teacher is now everything: from cleaner to administrative staff to psychologist. I think that parents could help more with activities to relieve teachers. Think of peripheral matters such as copying and putting reports in sleeves.”

Teacher Dorien König is not at all pleased with the consequences of the solutions that are being put forward. ,,These options do not necessarily benefit the quality of teaching and things are not going well in education. Relaxing requirements, I think you should always watch out for that. I believe in attracting and retaining good staff and believe that the profession should be made attractive.”

According to Tamar van Gelder, chairman of the General Education Union (AOb), we are currently dealing with ‘a mega problem’ in education. “I think it’s complicated that the Education Council then pretends to be a teacher shortage here to stay is. We just feel that not everything has been done yet.”

Van Gelder shares the view that adequate funding is important for high-quality education. “And less teaching time is also a plan, as long as there is more room for teachers to prepare lessons better. In addition, everyone should realize that at the other times it is really not about lessons by qualified teachers, but well-groomed care by others.”

In large cities, the teacher shortage is even more important. In primary education in Amsterdam the deficit is 17.6 percent, in The Hague 17.3 percent and in Rotterdam 11.3 percent. There are also shortages in secondary education, but to a lesser extent. There is a particular need for specialized teachers.

OCO informs, advises and connects parents about going to school in Amsterdam. Director Menno van de Koppel: ,,When the teacher shortage broke out here, we held a large brainstorming session in Amsterdam to discuss solutions. It showed, for example, that you could train teachers in the same way as doctors: first you become a medical doctor and then you specialize. That would also be a good idea for education. Because specialization fits in perfectly with the vision of the Education Council: teachers focus on their strongest element.”

With regard to the cancellation during teaching time, Van de Koppel also says that something must be done in return. “So give teachers extra time to organize their lessons properly and make the classes smaller. Here, if you do less, do better. But everyone knows how things unfortunately often go in practice: usually the worst scenario emerges. So we shouldn’t start with less teaching time and only then start thinking about how we are going to put the quality in order. That sequence can be disastrous.”

The Education Council literally came up with the idea to give students official education only four days a week. There is a program at school on the fifth day, but that is not part of the curriculum. This does not have to be provided by qualified teachers. König adds: “Education is different from keeping children busy.”

The teacher thinks reducing teaching time is a good idea in itself, but teachers should also be able to benefit from it. “If you use this substance purely to have the same number of teachers give more lessons to other classes, that actually increases the workload.”

Strangely enough, trade union chairman Van Gelder advocates smaller classes, especially now. “That seems to contradict the approach to the teacher shortage, but at the moment we are chasing education out with those large classes of teachers. We have a ‘hidden reserve’ of 83,000 people. They all have a power, but they no longer work in education. Get those people back, even if only part-time!”

“There is no egg from Columbus”, concludes Van Gelder (AOb). “We are facing a crisis. Then you have to pull out all the stops; fully committed to attracting and retaining teachers. And all at the same time.”