Dresden (dpa/sn) – In the fight against a shortage of teachers, Saxony wants to increasingly rely on teachers from Ukraine. “We want to open up career prospects for them in Saxony and offer them the opportunity to work permanently at our schools from the new school year,” said Minister of Education Christian Piwarz (CDU) of the “Leipzig Volkszeitung”. In view of the current problems of finding enough teachers on the job market, “this would of course also benefit teaching security,” he said.
According to the Ministry of Culture, 522 teachers and 154 school assistants from Ukraine are currently employed at Saxon schools. They look after refugee children and young people, who are usually prepared for regular classes in special classes. 10,300 of them are currently studying in public and free schools, with 535 already being integrated into conventional classes. According to the Ministry of Education, the total costs so far amount to 19.4 million euros.
Piwarz now wants to keep as many Ukrainian educators in schools as possible and use this potential to reduce staffing problems and the drop in classes. Their previous fixed-term contracts are to become permanent positions. “Anyone who has proven themselves so far and is committed to further qualifying (themselves) linguistically and professionally is very welcome.”
According to the ministry, about a third of the 1,500 advertised positions could not be filled at the beginning of the school year. It was said that 1,220 teachers were currently missing in order to be able to secure all lessons. In order to get more teachers in front of the classes, the part-time rate should be reduced from the current 35.1 percent. From the coming school year, a reduction will only be granted for raising children, caring for relatives or for health reasons.
