The Education and Science Union (GEW) does not see the conditions in place for a good start to the new school year. There is a great deal of frustration, particularly among new teachers, GEW President Burkhard Naumann told the German Press Agency. In the future, student teachers are to spend 14 hours per week in the classroom instead of 12. The Ministry of Education hopes this will increase capacity by 150,000 hours and thus help minimize class cancellations. Naumann expects the increased workload during teacher training to lead to more dropouts.
Outflow and High Dissatisfaction
“Trainee teachers are being used to fill vacancies without receiving adequate compensation,” said Naumann. Decisions like these in recent years have scared people away. It’s no wonder that young teachers in particular are now looking for jobs in Saxony-Anhalt or Thuringia. “We’re seeing an exodus from Saxony and a high level of dissatisfaction in the schools. Given the current teacher shortage, this is extremely risky. It’s not good for the new school year to start with frustration.”
GEW Leader Calls for Appreciation and Reliability
According to Naumann, appreciation and reliability are essential for retaining teachers in the school system. The high number of teacher transfers to other schools doesn’t help either. “This causes a great deal of unrest. There’s no certainty that I’ll still be teaching at my school tomorrow.” This lack of trust ultimately affects the quality of instruction. No one really knows how long they’ll be teaching a particular class. In some classes, the homeroom teacher changes several times per school year.
“When it comes to canceled classes, it’s not just about the statistics. It’s about building relationships, reliability, and predictability. All of that has been severely compromised,” said Naumann. While the goal of having a teacher for every class sounds good in theory, what really matters is that it’s not just any teacher, but the same teacher. “Teachers aren’t simply interchangeable. Students build relationships with their teachers.”
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