Despite the recruitment of more than 1,000 new teachers, there is still a shortage of teachers at the start of the new school year, particularly at secondary schools and special schools. Securing teaching remains a challenge, said Minister of Education Christian Piwarz (CDU) on Wednesday in Dresden. According to him, 1033 people have been recruited so far, mainly at grammar schools and elementary school. 773 of them are trained teachers, 120 are educational assistants at special schools, who do not replace special school teachers, and 140 are lateral entrants who will start teaching after their qualification.
Piwarz nevertheless assured that, depending on the "imponderables of life", there will be a teacher in front of every class next Monday. Of course, more recruitment would be desirable, but the applicant situation no longer allows for this. On a positive note, this time around a quarter of the 877 trained applicants came from other federal states and two thirds of them accepted the offer of employment. Together with the applicants from the Free State, a total of 88 percent of the trained teachers were recruited for the teaching profession. "We could only dream of retention rates of around 90 percent in the past, when it was not possible for teachers in Saxony to become civil servants."
