There are still too few teachers in schools in Baden-Württemberg. According to the Education Association, the situation has eased somewhat in the new school year.
According to the Association for Education and Upbringing (VBE), the provision of lessons in Baden-Württemberg has improved compared to last year, but remains patchy. This emerges from a survey conducted by the association in more than 1,000 schools. Accordingly, almost half of the schools surveyed had to cancel classes in the third week of school. Classes would have had to be merged in four out of ten schools, and teachers in every second school would have had to work overtime, said VBE regional director Gerhard Brand.
Brand cited, among other things, absences from illness, pregnancies, further training and a lack of staff reserves to cushion such cases as the reasons for the gaps in the timetable. “The information shows us how thin the staffing level still is. In order to be able to compensate for failures and absences, all schools would actually have to start the school year with a staff reserve of 10 to 20 percent,” said Brand.
VBE: Regular operations are not possible at many special education schools
The VBE said the situation has improved at primary and secondary schools. Nevertheless, there are still too few teachers at every sixth primary school surveyed.
The situation at the special education and counseling centers (SBBZ) surveyed is also still bad. According to the VBE, more than half of these schools cannot cover regular operations. Because there are too few teachers there almost everywhere. In almost half of the schools surveyed, 20 to 30 percent of teachers were absent. Last year, according to the VBE, this still applied to around 37 percent of the schools surveyed.
Maximum savings are made for the weakest in the educational landscape.
The VBE chairman called on the state government to create the conditions so that significantly more qualified staff can be trained for special education. “These children in particular urgently need a high staffing ratio. Instead, they come into a system that creaks and creaks at every turn,” says Brand.
Opposition parties are calling for more support for special education schools
The SPD in the state parliament also demanded more support from the state for special education schools. Their education policy group spokesman Stefan Fulst-Blei accused the green-black state government of not adequately supporting special needs schools and not strengthening inclusion. Because both topics played no role at all in the widely advertised education reforms. The FDP education expert Timm Kern called the situation at the SBBZ “catastrophic”. The children and their parents suffer. From the AfD’s point of view, a larger disease reserve is needed. She calls for the budget to be increased for this purpose.
Stuttgart
250 positions still open
Minister of Education: Fewer unfilled teaching positions at the start of school in BW
Shortly before the start of the school year, there are fewer teaching positions open in schools than in the previous year. According to the Minister of Education, the reasons are more lateral entrants and less part-time work.
Ministry of Culture surveys schools about the staffing situation in November
The Ministry of Culture had seen the schools well equipped shortly before the start of the school year. According to the ministry at the beginning of September, all open teaching positions were essentially filled this school year. Education Minister Theresa Schopper (Greens) announced at the time that 250 teaching positions were still unfilled. The year before there were 565 vacancies. There are no more concrete numbers yet. The ministry postponed its own query on teaching provision until November in order to relieve the burden on school management at the beginning of the school year, a spokesman told SWR. Official figures would therefore only be presented after the autumn holidays.
GEW warns again about a shortage of teachers
The Education and Science Union (GEW) fears that the teacher shortage in Germany will worsen. The reason is the gradual introduction of the legal right to full-day care, said GEW chairwoman Maike Finnern “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgart News”. It was said that there would be a shortage of up to 110,000 teachers by 2030.
