Berlin: More than 1,200 teachers apply for official status shortly after the start of registration

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Teacher at the blackboard (symbol photo)

Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa

Hundreds of previously employed teachers in Berlin applied for civil servant status after the start of an online registration process on Wednesday morning.

According to the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family, more than 1,200 such applications were received in the first hours before noon.

"Anyone who is or will be 52 years old in the current school year 2022/2023 or later can be a civil servant, provided that all personal and legal career requirements are met," it said in the nicest official German.

Accordingly, anyone over the age of 52 does not benefit from the new regulation.

Overall, the authority expects that around 16,000 employed teachers can be made civil servants.

The persons concerned had been informed of the procedure in a letter.

After 18 years of hiatus, Berlin was the last federal state to decide to re-enlist teaching staff.

This is to counteract the shortage of skilled workers.

There were many complaints about the migration of young teachers to other federal states.

This corrects a "major competitive disadvantage," it said last July, when the return of civil servants was announced.

Other federal states such as Thuringia and Brandenburg had also not made their teachers civil servants for a long time, but hired them as salaried employees, but have since lifted this rule.

kfr/dpa