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Saxony's Minister of Education Christian Piwarz
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Robert Michael / dpa
Around a third of teachers in Saxony work part-time.
Her top employer, Minister of Education Christian Piwarz (CDU), has now turned to her with a request: "I hope that as many as possible will decide to teach maybe two, three or four hours a week more," he said an interview with the »Leipziger Volkszeitung« (LVZ).
This is how the loss of lessons in the Free State should be combated.
If all 10,000 part-time employees worked full time, that would correspond to 2,500 jobs, Piwarz calculated.
The reason for this was a special report by the State Audit Office in Dresden on the civil servant status of teachers.
This showed that there were actually enough teachers to ensure the teaching: "Teaching in the elementary level at Saxon schools was not fully guaranteed, although the assigned permanent positions in the examination period 2018 to 2021 corresponded to the announced teacher requirements or even went beyond them," says the paper.
Criticism from the GEW
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In the interview, Piwarz announced that he now wants to approach part-time teachers.
"You're already in the system, but you're not working full-time." Piwarz added that he knew there were good reasons for working part-time.
Nevertheless, he hopes for many commitments to increase the number of hours due to the current situation.
So far, there have been very different part-time models.
The idea is not well received by the teachers' union GEW.
Teachers are not part-time because they want to earn less money, but so that they can deal with the stress better, said Saxony's GEW chairman Uschi Kruse of the LVZ.
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Piwarz is not the first politician with this proposal.
Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), who himself teaches biology, chemistry and ethics at various high schools in the Stuttgart area, suggested almost six months ago that the minimum working hours for civil servant teachers be increased from 25 to 30 percent.
He also argued with the increasing shortage of teachers.
After protests, he withdrew his proposal and advocated that part-time workers should voluntarily increase their hours.
Protest rally against the shortage of teachers
The Saxon Teachers' Association and the GEW have called for a protest rally in front of the state parliament in Dresden this Wednesday.
The teachers' association writes on its website that the shortage of teachers in schools has reached catastrophic proportions.
The stressful situation for the educators and the entire school staff continues to increase.
“Instead of providing additional hires and relief, the state government is ignoring our warnings and suggestions.
That's why we have to increase the pressure now and take our demands to the streets!«
In Saxony, around a third of the 1,500 vacancies for teachers could not be filled at the start of the school year.
According to the Ministry of Education, only 809 teachers with basic training applied, including a good 200 from other federal states.
Because the majority of applicants are flocking to the big cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz, there is a major shortage in East Saxony in particular.
Only 70 applications were received for 207 advertised positions.
olb
