There are not enough teachers at many schools in Bavaria. An association even speaks of 4000 who are missing. The Ministry of Education sees it differently. What can children and young people expect?
Munich (dpa / lby) – The Bavarian Teachers’ Association (BLLV) considers the situation in schools in the Free State to be devastating. The main reason given by association president Simone Fleischmann is the lack of 4,000 teachers at elementary, middle and special schools. “Lessons are cancelled. Lessons are cancelled. Children are more likely to be sent home. The teachers are not enough for the regular offers, let alone for offers that would be urgently needed after this exhausting Corona period,” said them on Monday in Munich. Around 1.68 million students start the new school year on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Education assesses the situation differently in terms of the number of teachers. The student-teacher ratio has improved significantly in recent years, a spokesman said on request. He referred to the 2016/2017 school year. At that time there were about the same number of students as there are today, around 1.68 million. “Today, the same number of students are taught with 7,000 more teaching positions,” explained the spokesman. Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (Free Voters) recently spoke of several hundred positions that still had to be filled.
Fleischmann called on the state government to make education a top priority. “The educational string concert also attacks the core areas of teaching and the basic structures of school education,” criticized the pedagogue. Classes are larger, subjects such as music, art or sport are being cut, as are offers for support and differentiation.
These measures were initially at the expense of the weakest, “even though we have to make up for so many deficits in a wide variety of areas among children and young people from the two Corona years,” said Fleischmann. In addition, there is no reliable half-day primary school. “Children who come home from elementary school at 11.20 a.m. only make it possible for their parents to work to a limited extent.”
It was only on Friday that the Philologists’ Association and the Bavarian Realschule Teachers’ Association, among others, called for support from the Ministry of Education in view of the shortage of teachers, for example through the unbureaucratic and quick hiring of temporary teachers. The schools would also have to prepare for a possible new wave of corona infections. In addition, the war in Ukraine is exacerbating the situation because refugee children are also being taught.
The Greens in the state parliament criticized the state government for throwing everyone into crisis mode at the start of school. “It has been clear for weeks that there are still many teachers missing,” complained Thomas Gehring, spokesman for teachers. Instead of creating quick solutions, the Minister of Education is cutting the range of courses. “As before the holidays, classes are being sent home. Lessons are canceled – not because of Corona, but because there are no teachers. It couldn’t be more fatal!” According to him, middle schools in particular need the support of other schools. Instead, their teachers would be poached with the prospect of a better salary.
