Dresden (dpa/sn) - The Education and Science Union (GEW) is concerned about the new school year in Saxony given the shortage of teachers. "I have hardly experienced a school year that starts as badly as this school year in terms of staff," said GEW boss Uschi Kruse on Wednesday in Dresden. Light at the end of the tunnel is not possible without changes to previous school practice, without new ideas and without fundamental corrections to the draft budget. The hope for improvement is extremely small.
According to Kruse, the personnel situation at the schools has deteriorated significantly compared to the past school year. Even at the beginning of the 2021/2022 school year, it was not possible to cover the timetable in any type of school. At that time, about 1000 teachers would have been missing. Take this minus with you into the new school year. Conditions would now continue to deteriorate. At the beginning of the third “Corona school year”, 3,000 jobs would be missing for the minimum equipment alone.
"This is actually an oath of disclosure in terms of educational policy," said the GEW boss. Even the demand in Dresden and Leipzig and at high schools can no longer be met. This time, only 31 percent of the planned settings for high schools and special needs schools were successful. You can no longer even compensate for the age-related departures. Kruse expects schools to cut their timetable and forego a sports lesson. In addition, teachers would have to commute from one class to the other.
The union assumes that the number of lessons will increase. In the last year before the pandemic, 5.2 percent of the lessons were canceled across all types of schools. In ten school years, that would be a total of half a year, Kruse calculated. One must reckon with a "school year of uncertainty". The consequences of the energy crisis for schools are not yet foreseeable. She cited the heating of schools and swimming lessons as examples.
According to Kruse, Saxony needs a "liberation strike" in the future in order to secure the need for teachers in the long term. Apparently, the officials did not solve the problems. In the meantime, however, she had become without alternative. Without civil servants, the extent of the shortage would probably be much greater. The GEW chair suggested a round table to use the "swarm intelligence" of many to solve the problems. It is also about the question of how to motivate teachers to keep them on track.
The Saxon Ministry of Culture has invited to the traditional press conference for the new school year on Thursday. Classes start next Monday.
