Corona failures and thousands of additional students from Ukraine: The coming school year will be a challenge in Bavaria. And it is still unclear whether there are enough teachers for this.
Munich (dpa / lby) – Just under three weeks before the end of the summer holidays, the Bavarian Ministry of Education does not yet know how many teachers may be missing at the beginning of the school year. “Reliable information on how the teaching will be provided at the beginning of the school year is not yet possible,” said a ministry spokesman in Munich.
Because by the start of the school year there will be “from experience a lot of changes” such as illnesses and pregnancies among teachers or additional personnel requirements “due to the further influx of children and young people from the Ukraine”. The new school year begins in Bavaria on September 13th.
“Personnel planning and personnel recruitment for this are currently in full swing,” said the spokesman, emphasizing: “Bavaria is still doing well overall in comparison to the rest of Germany in terms of the supply of personnel.”
More than 4,600 teachers were hired last school year, 1,000 of them in newly created posts. According to the ministry, the limit of 100,000 permanent teachers was exceeded for the first time. “There have never been as many teachers in Bavaria as there are today,” said the spokesman.
However, personnel planning for the coming school year is “characterized by special challenges”: due to the corona pandemic, failures must be expected. In the last school year, for example, almost 3,000 pregnant women were absent because they were not allowed to be used in face-to-face classes due to the risk of infection.
The Ministry of Education also expects around 30,000 additional students from Ukraine in the coming year. In order to teach them, 1,620 “full-time capacities” were created at short notice – that means: new positions, temporary teachers or adjustment of part-time work. The teacher market is nationwide “tense”. That’s why “choice and inclination offers” might have to be restricted.
Because the demand for teachers is primarily at middle and special schools, Bavaria now also relies on lateral entrants there: academics who, after a two-year preparatory service, receive a teaching degree and can teach at the respective school type.
According to the information, there will be shortages at high schools in the coming years, especially in the subjects physics, computer science and art. This September and February 2023, applicants with a master’s degree or a diploma in the relevant disciplines are to be admitted to the two-year preparatory service. According to the ministry, around 60 career changers are expected to take part in the special measure from September.
