In order to prepare the municipal school system for the future and to support students as needed despite the shortage of skilled workers, the city of Munich is relying on multi-professional teams to relieve the burden on teachers. To this end, from the 2024/45 school year, unfilled teacher weekly hours from the “Munich Way” quota should be reallocated and filled by specialists from the non-school sector. The city council has now decided on this flexibility, known as “Munich Way 2.0”, at the meeting of the education committee.
With the Munich Way 2.0, the Munich City Council has launched an innovative instrument to minimize lesson cancellations at the city schools, expand their holistic educational offerings and place a greater focus on the everyday skills of the students. Municipal general education schools that cannot fill the hourly quotas from the “Munich Way” school development program with fully trained teachers will have the opportunity to hire specialists from other areas in the future. Possible professions for such positions include social educators and educators with profiles such as dance, theater, music, as well as sports scientists, media educators, musicians or laboratory assistants. Ultimately, the schools decide for themselves and can thereby not only address specific needs, but also sharpen their school profile.
Urbanity and education: The “Munich way” of school development
This flexibilization is a consistent continuation of the so-called Munich Way of school development, for which the city has been providing additional funds since the 1990s. The starting point is the conviction that the urban student population is particularly heterogeneous and that educational equality can only be achieved through tailor-made measures and individual support. The Münchner Weg underwent its last major update in 2017 under the heading “Education tailored to your needs”. Due to the shortage of skilled workers, the funding volume of the Munich Way could no longer be fully utilized. Despite the expansion of personnel advertising measures and the permanent employment of lateral entrants, 44 full-time equivalent positions at the municipal secondary schools and special schools as well as 10 full-time equivalent positions at municipal high schools remained unfilled in the current school year. The expansion of the G9 will exacerbate the problem at high schools. The measures of the Munich Way 2.0 aim to change this situation and to activate every available resource to support students in the future.
Possible uses for multi-professional teams
The new colleagues in the multi-professional teams are to be used as support staff in lessons, in voluntary elective lessons, in language support, ESD (education for sustainable development), democracy education or as part of a full-time program. They are not authorized to teach independently in the area of compulsory or elective lessons. However, their work contributes significantly to the schools’ holistic educational offerings and enables teachers to concentrate on their core tasks.
Additional resources for zoo school projects
In the area of ESD, among other things, the Munich Way 2.0 gives municipal schools in Munich the opportunity to effectively integrate the award-winning Munich Zoo School into their lessons. By reallocating one teacher’s hour per week in a resource-neutral manner, the municipal secondary schools and the municipal high schools each generate a new position in the Munich Zoo School. This is then only available to the respective type of school to expand its offerings in a tailor-made manner. This can involve projects in the area of ESD, but visits as part of biology lessons, which are led by a specialist, are also conceivable and thus profitably expand the educational spectrum of urban general education schools.
Opening of city schools to state trainees
In addition to building multi-professional teams, Munich Way 2.0 also envisages the integration of state trainees at the city’s secondary schools. They should be given the opportunity to complete the year of deployment or the second training phase of the traineeship at municipal secondary schools. The state capital of Munich would reimburse the Free State of Bavaria for the costs of assigning the trainees. This is also a resource-neutral measure, as the vacancies would have to be filled anyway. The first discussions have already taken place with representatives of the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture.
Mayor Verena Dietl: “With Munich Way 2.0, we have achieved a major success for our municipal school system. We enable municipal schools to address the shortage of teachers pragmatically and in line with needs. In this way, we can reduce the burden on teachers and enrich the educational offerings, from which all students will benefit.”
City school councilor Florian Kraus: “School is a learning system. We have been practicing this basic understanding with the Munich Way for 30 years. With the current innovations, we ensure that we can provide educational justice and equal opportunities even under changing social conditions. I’m very proud of that.”
2024-03-07 23:13:59
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