Education BoardContinuing to teach when there is a shortage of teachers requires painful choices, warns the Education Council. For example, a ‘drastic’ option is fewer compulsory teaching hours. The way in which the work is distributed in schools can also be overhauled.
Teacher shortages persist and are unevenly distributed. So the time has come for difficult decisions to deal with the shortages, says the study Scarcity sheds on Thursday. These will have major consequences for the teaching profession, educational quality and equality of opportunity.
Chairman Edith Hooge of the Education Council: ,,The teacher shortage should never get used to. We must do everything we can to recruit and retain teachers. This should also be continued in the future. But many schools are now struggling with the shortages and according to estimates they will continue. So at the same time, far-reaching solutions are needed to continue to provide good education.”
According to estimates, the shortages will indeed not decrease and will even increase further after 2030. That is why the now resigned Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Dennis Wiersma, asked the advisory body to map out the ‘options’ and ‘implications’ if we want to continue to provide good education.
Far-reaching solutions are needed to continue to provide good education
Edith Hooge, chairman of the Education Council
No ready-made solutions
There are no ready-made solutions, the Education Council emphasizes. It is working out two options: firstly, a limitation of what schools have on the programme. Think of adjusting the compulsory teaching time, the national final goals and levels and the expectations of society. This is ‘a far-reaching, but also promising course of action to deal with teacher shortages’.
For example, the Education Council sketches a scenario that is already realistic at some schools in large cities: pupils go to school for four days and there is a program at school on the fifth day, but that is not part of the education on offer. This does not have to be provided by qualified teachers, be mandatory or available.
The second direction, better organization of work in schools, requires extra coordination and commitment over a longer period of time. The central idea is: the total work and activities in a school can be distributed more efficiently among teachers, specialists, teaching assistants and other support staff. Volunteers or parents may even be available for certain activities.
‘Using computers not a solution for teacher shortages’
The use of digital technology does not provide relief from the current teacher shortages, according to the Education Council. Remarkable, because computers and software are increasingly embedded in education and can take over, facilitate or accelerate certain tasks of teachers.
Nevertheless, the advisory body reports in an exploratory report on Thursday: ‘The use of digital technology makes teaching more complex. And it does not yield any savings in the sense that fewer teachers are actually needed. Because the involvement and professionalism of teachers are always necessary.’
In addition, the use of digital technology in the classroom can influence the mastery of skills such as language and math, according to international research. Perhaps the most important reason for rejecting this option, according to chairman Edith Hooge: “The use of digital technology increases the chances of inequality. Vulnerable children who receive less at home often do not have good material (Wi-Fi or a laptop) and learn much less through this method than with a teacher.”
Now it is up to politicians to make decisions and to indicate very clearly the bandwidth and direction
Edith Hooge, Education Council
Everyone’s business
In any case, the Education Council considers it important to take extra account of schools that are struggling, for example in deprived areas, when looking for solutions. Hooge: “Dealing with the persistent and unevenly distributed teacher shortage is everyone’s business. So don’t praise yourself as a school or board if you are not (yet) suffering from shortages, but show solidarity and come to the aid of the schools and boards that do have to deal with it.”
With this exploration, the chairman mainly wants to indicate that clear rules must be made to tackle the teacher shortages, such as an adjustment of the compulsory teaching time. Only then can schools ‘come out of the improvisation mode’, as she puts it. Now there is talk of a ‘grey area’.
Hooge: “School boards have difficult choices to make here. We outline a few. Now it is up to politicians to make decisions in this regard and to indicate very clearly the bandwidth and direction.”
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