Lucerne Government Rejects School Social Work in Grammar Schools, Proposes Strengthening Class Teachers Instead

School social workers are compulsory in primary and secondary school, but not in high school. Central cantonal councilor Priska Häfliger-Kunz wants to change that with a postulate. But the government has other plans.

editorial staff

Editorial office central plus

The Lucerne government does not want to introduce school social work in Lucerne’s grammar schools, as it writes in its response to Priska Häfliger-Kunz’s (middle) postulate. The use of school social workers is currently compulsory at primary and secondary schools in Lucerne, but not at high schools.

Kanti students would need more and more advice and support and would also suffer more and more from psychological stress (zentralplus reported). However, their needs are different from those of secondary school students, so school social work should not simply be taken on, the government said.

Traditionally, school social work supports classes primarily in crisis prevention and intervention, integration or early detection of social problems. At the cantonal schools, however, the schoolgirls need more help with psychological and psychosocial problems. Nevertheless, the government wants to declare the postulate significant. However, she would like to apply the lever elsewhere.

Class teachers instead of school social workers

On the one hand, she wants to expand psychological counseling at the vocational and further training department. This is open to all high school students. In addition, the cantonal schools would have liked to have an appropriate specialist on site during a survey. According to the Department of Elementary Education’s guidelines for school social workers, one full-time position would be needed for every 750 students. The Lucerne government is therefore expecting three additional specialists who would cost around CHF 480,000 a year.

On the other hand, the government proposes strengthening the class teachers. According to her answer, these are “often the first point of contact for students in their class with questions, difficulties, psychological problems and also with regard to the choice of career and study.”

It was only in August 2022 that the canton of Lucerne increased the lessons for class teachers in the lower secondary school from 0.5 to 1.5 per week. The government now also wants to increase the number of lessons in the high school and in the specialist secondary school to 1 lesson per week. This would cost around CHF 745,000 a year. If the class teachers were also strengthened at vocational schools, it would cost an additional CHF 1.24 million a year.