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The math itself may be correct, but some numbers are almost certainly overestimated;
some factors were not considered;
the overall result is therefore incorrect and glosses over the future shortage of staff in Germany's schools - the result of a study by the educational researcher Klaus Klemm can be summed up roughly by this denominator.
He has (once again) checked the calculations made by the Ministers of Education on the need and supply of teachers and is questioning them.
In his analysis, Klemm (again) comes to the conclusion that the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) is wrong with its model calculations and that the shortage of teachers in Germany will be much greater in the coming years than previously feared.
While the KMK assumes that there will be a shortage of around 14,000 teachers in 2030, the educational researcher sees a significantly higher balance: 81,000.
According to Klemm's forecasts, the shortage of staff will not affect all types of school and all subjects equally.
There will even tend to be an oversupply of teachers at grammar schools.
At the same time, the shortage of teachers is likely to be particularly serious, especially in other secondary schools for grades five to ten, and in the so-called MINT subjects (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology) take on “dramatic proportions”.
An analysis for North Rhine-Westphalia, which according to Klemm tends to be transferrable to the other federal states, shows that in 2030 newly trained teachers will only be available for a third of the STEM positions to be filled.
The remaining positions could only be filled from outside the field or not at all.
The review at a glance:
On almost 30 pages, Klemm explains how he proceeded and where he believes the errors in the KMK's model calculations lie.
The educational researcher considers the assumptions made by the Ministers of Education regarding the development of student numbers and the teacher requirements derived from them to be reliable.
He comes to similar conclusions as the KMK.
In Klemm's view, however, the Ministers of Education are expecting figures elsewhere that he considers unrealistic with a view to the future.
According to Klemm, the number of future graduate teachers was overestimated.
The assumptions about the new offer of trained teachers are "to a large extent dubious," writes the researcher.
They are just as little covered by the recent development in the number of student teachers as by the number of those entitled to study who would leave schools in the next few years.
Among other things, Klemm included in his model calculation that the number of high school graduates will change and not everyone who is studying to become a teacher will actually complete their studies.
In his scenario, on this basis, he assumes that only 286,000 trained teachers will enter the labor market by 2030.
The KMK assumes that there will be around 63,000 more.
Ultimately, it remains uncertain how many people actually complete their studies and complete a traineeship.
more on the subject
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With career changers and seniors against the educational misery: teachers urgently neededBy Jan Friedmann and Miriam Olbrisch
Shortage of teachers in schools: With an announcement against the wall by Silke Fokken
The educational researcher also criticizes the fact that the KMK assumed the status quo in terms of educational policy.
The calculation of the need for recruitment is obviously based on the need parameters that are kept largely constant.
You take into account neither
that class sizes could be reduced in the future.
That teachers could be obliged to teach fewer hours per week in order to gain more time for relationship work or organizational tasks.
That more teachers will be needed if the all-day offer in schools is expanded.
That the need for staff increases when children with and without disabilities learn together more often, keyword inclusion.
That more educators than before have to be hired if schools in socially disadvantaged parts of the city are to be given additional human resources.
The last three measures mentioned are declared educational policy goals.
Because not all teachers work full-time, Klemm assumes that almost 75,000 additional people would have to be hired for this alone.
This applies at least if the legal entitlement to all-day care for children of primary school age, which will take effect from 2026, “not only educators should be active in the field of extracurricular activities”.
This additional need for staff has not yet been taken into account for the 81,000 teachers who will be missing by 2030 according to his calculations.
From his point of view, the shortage of staff would be significantly higher than in the KMK forecast.
Are there countermeasures?
While politicians keep emphasizing that they want to counteract the shortage of staff in schools with a training offensive, the number of teacher graduates in Germany has fallen on average in recent years: by seven percent. Although some federal states have invested heavily in the training of educators and in some cases drastically increased the number of graduates, such as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, other federal states, on the other hand, are training far fewer teachers today than they were a few years ago.
The two charts show that the number of teachers graduating is tending to decline, particularly in the federal states in which a larger wave of retirements is to be expected in the coming years.
"Even if it were possible to significantly increase the proportion of first-year students who aspire to a teaching position as early as 2022, this would only be reflected in an increase in the number of new qualified teachers available at the end of the 1920s," Klemm writes in his analysis .
Udo Beckmann, chairman of the Education and Training Association (VBE), who commissioned the study, considers the KMK calculations to be a "huge sham".
Politicians must finally stop calculating the actual need for teachers.
KMK: »All 16 countries are aware of the situation«
Karin Prien, acting KMK President and Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein, points to the extensive efforts of the KMK to alleviate the shortage of staff in schools.
The bottleneck predicted in the past will be exacerbated by the consequences of rising birth rates and immigration and much more.
"Such results from studies are not new to us and we keep an eye on developments," says Prien.
In addition, one works "of course continuously on the methodical further development" of the forecasts.
With a view to Klemm's criticism that the KMK does not include any educational reforms in its calculations, Prien said that currently approved or planned educational policy innovations for the development of teaching positions in the federal states are essentially absorbed by the federal states' calculations in the course of the year or by annual reporting .
The CDU politician emphasized: "All 16 countries are aware of the situation and are taking country-specific measures."
