To counteract the growing shortage of teachers, education experts suggest limiting the part-time employment of educators. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Education Minister Oldenburg thinks nothing of it.
Schwerin (dpa/mv) – Despite the shortage of teachers in many schools, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania does not want to limit the opportunities for part-time work and shorter working hours for older teachers. “We will not take back any relief for teachers. On the contrary, we will create further conditions for the teachers to continue to be relieved,” announced Minister of Education Simone Oldenburg (left) on Friday in Schwerin.
At the end of January, education experts advising the Conference of Ministers of Education proposed increasing the teaching workload for educators and restricting part-time work in order to ensure the provision of teaching. “Nobody benefits if we worsen the working conditions. I miss the education researchers any understanding of professional reality,” criticized Oldenburg, who herself worked as a teacher.
Instead of restricting part-time work, the duration of the so-called age credit hours will be extended. According to Oldenburg, the number of compulsory hours is reduced by one hour from the age of 57, by two hours from the age of 60 and by four hours from the age of 63. So far, the reduction has only been granted in the year after the age limit has been reached, but in future it will apply earlier at the beginning of each half of the school year. According to the minister, around 1,000 teachers will benefit from the innovation as of February 1, 2024. A total of 4,600 educators would then work less due to age.
According to Oldenburg, the age credit hours granted in the 2020/2021 school year corresponded to around 200 teaching positions. This involved costs of 17 million euros.
According to the Ministry of Education, by 2030 more than half of the current 12,000 teachers will be leaving the state. 600 to 800 teachers have to be hired every year to compensate for this. In the end, this was only possible with the help of a large number of so-called lateral entrants who had no pedagogical training.
