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Lessons in a primary school.
© Julian Stratenschulte/dpa
In view of the falling birth rates, according to a current calculation, there will soon be more graduates in primary school teaching than jobs throughout Germany.
However, one should not rejoice too early for NRW, warns the state education minister.
Gütersloh/Düsseldorf - Shortage becomes surplus: According to an estimate by education experts, there will soon be more primary school teachers than positions.
A forecast from the Bertelsmann Foundation presented on Thursday assumes that by 2035 around 45,800 more primary teachers across Germany will be fully trained than are needed to cover teaching.
The background is a trend reversal in demographic development.
Fewer children have recently been born than up to 2021. In North Rhine-Westphalia, however, the school minister believes that the shortage cannot be expected to be overcome in the near future.
According to the Bertelsmann Foundation's nationwide calculation, the long-standing shortage of primary school teachers will likely be overcome in many places by the next school year because, unlike in 2023, there will be more new teachers available than will leave the profession.
However, a mathematical oversupply of graduates does not necessarily mean unemployment for educators, emphasize the study authors Klaus Klemm and Dirk Zorn.
Rather, politicians are given the scope for quality improvements that is lacking today.
The teachers could be used to expand all-day offerings or to hire more staff at schools in socially difficult situations.
The experts also suggest that primary school teachers also receive further training for use in the fifth and sixth grades.
North Rhine-Westphalia's Education Minister Dorothee Feller (CDU) pointed out in a reaction to the study that she does not expect a surplus for North Rhine-Westphalia any time soon: "We should not be too happy about the figures presented today." Even if the decline in birth rates continues If the number of immigrant students is declining significantly, it will take years in North Rhine-Westphalia before the shortage of teachers in primary schools is overcome.
There’s no reason to sit back and relax.”
Feller described the shortage of teachers as the biggest challenge for schools.
The state government's action plan for supplying schools with teachers is now bearing its first fruits.
According to the Ministry of Education in North Rhine-Westphalia, 3,052 positions at primary schools were still vacant in December 2023.
A year earlier there was a gap of 3,437 positions.
The North Rhine-Westphalia Association for Education and Upbringing (VBE NRW) also reacted cautiously to the calculations presented by the Bertelsmann Foundation.
If, contrary to expectations, there were to be a surplus of primary school teachers in North Rhine-Westphalia, this would be “just a drop in the ocean,” the state association said.
“The staff shortage remains blatant.” There would be a shortage of at least 4,500 teachers across all schools over the next ten years.
With its estimate, the Bertelsmann Foundation deviates significantly from the forecast presented by the Conference of Culture Ministers (KMK) at the end of 2023, which estimated a surplus of only 6,300 graduates in the primary level for 2035.
The background is primarily a turnaround in demographic development, which is not yet reflected in the KMK calculations: the decline in births in 2022 and 2023 was more than 100,000 more significant than predicted in the statistical information from the federal states.
The authors of the Bertelsmann Foundation study will also update the downwardly corrected student numbers accordingly for subsequent years.
Fundamentally, forecasts like these are subject to a number of uncertainties.
According to education expert Zorn, expected migration movements are included, but not “exogenous shocks that trigger large refugee movements, such as a new war and catastrophes”.
“One more reason to use additional staff for a resilient school system,” said study author Zorn.
In addition, the consideration applies to the whole of Germany, so that more differentiated calculations are required for tailor-made planning according to federal states and regions: “An oversupply in the big city does not rule out the desperate search for primary school teachers in rural areas,” says Zorn.
dpa