Schools have been short of teachers for many years. Despite growing expenses and additional jobs, there are no signs of relaxation. The market seems empty. The NRW school minister announces a new concept.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - At the schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, around 8,000 teaching positions are currently vacant. Despite the additional jobs created and expenses for the schools, the gap between the available and actually vacant jobs has continued to grow. This emerges from figures published by the Ministry of Education in Düsseldorf on Thursday. As before, most teachers are missing at primary schools.
As of December 1, 2022, staffing in the current school year had been improved by around 1,300 positions nationwide to a total of 157,023 positions compared to June 1, 2022. This year, 7,940 teachers and other educational staff were hired, said School Minister Dorothee Feller (CDU). The fact that many teachers are still missing is due on the one hand to the tense situation on the nationwide job market for teachers.
In addition, just under 5,000 more jobs were recently created with the 2022 budget at the beginning of the 2022/23 school year - for example for all-day, inclusion or the high school conversion to G9. In addition, an additional 1,000 teaching positions have been made available through the supplementary budget, primarily for children and young people from the Ukraine. The schools will first advertise these newly created positions in the coming weeks and, if possible, fill them during the year - during the current school year. So there is still movement in the system here, according to the ministry.
Despite all past and ongoing efforts, the gap did not get any smaller as of December 1: As of June 1, 2022, 4,369 of the 155,751 positions were vacant. Five years earlier, the number of vacancies was estimated at 2,945 - out of just under 152,300 available positions at the time. There are currently exactly 8,047 unfilled positions out of 157,023 available positions.
According to school types, the statistics show: 3,437 teaching posts are vacant at primary schools. As of December 1, 1491 positions were vacant at high schools in NRW and 1296 at comprehensive schools. 892 vacancies were counted for special needs schools. With comparatively few special schools and the corresponding number of places available, this type of school is hit harder than average.
"The shortage of teachers is currently nationwide and therefore also the biggest challenge for our schools," emphasized Feller, who has been in office since the summer. The pressure to act is great. A new concept against the shortage of staff is about to be finalized with the final votes. The minister wants to present this to the state parliament's school committee in two weeks. Since the summer holidays, a working group has been developing measures for better teaching, and a draft of the results is available. She spoke to everyone involved in school life about the proposals.
Better staffing cannot be created "overnight," it takes "staying power," said the CDU politician, according to the announcement. At the same time, however, it is important to improve the provision of lessons in schools as soon as possible.
