Berlin On Tuesday, news from Lower Saxony startled educational politicians, parents and teachers: A primary school head in Ammerland announced that she had to introduce the four-day week for more than 300 pupils with immediate effect because she did not have enough teachers.
The case makes it clear how great the need is nationwide: the shortage of teachers in Germany has assumed dramatic proportions. According to experts, if something doesn’t happen quickly, it will threaten the work of schools for the next 20 years.
Saxony-Anhalt has already initiated the turning point: there the cabinet under Reiner Haseloff (CDU) decided in January that teachers should soon work one hour more per week.
The topic affects everyone: According to the figures from the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) alone – which have repeatedly proved to be too low – there will be a shortage of around 25,000 teachers by 2025. Other forecasts assume 40,000 missing teachers by 2025 and 85,000 by 2035 or even 70,000 and 156,000 missing teachers.
The numbers go back to the educational scientist Klaus Klemm and calculations for the INSM education monitor. Then there are the unexpected, such as the Ukraine war. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, more than 200,000 additional students who also need teachers have been admitted.
The gap is particularly large in the so-called MINT subjects (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology): In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, for example, the supply of biology teachers will only be 39 percent by 2030/31, and 37 percent in mathematics 26 percent in chemistry, 18 percent in physics, 4.6 percent in computer science and only 3.6 percent in technology, according to a study commissioned by the Telekom Foundation.
A fifth of all pupils remain without minimum knowledge for working life
The helpless ministers of education, who for many years underestimated the misery, did not ensure enough places to study for teaching and found no counter-strategy, finally commissioned their new scientific advisers to search for rescue. And the Standing Science Commission (SWK) found clear words: Germany faces a “historical challenge” for the next 20 years, said the committee headed by the renowned educational researchers Olaf Köller and Felicitas Thiel.
Temporary “emergency measures” are therefore necessary: According to the experts, these range from less part-time work to larger classes and overtime. If the school ministers implement only a part, however, massive resistance from the teachers can be expected.
>> Also read here: Experts expect teacher shortages to continue for another 20 years
But, the scientists warn, it must be clear to all those involved in the school system that the misery “requires great efforts” in order to offer future generations of students a course that “enables them to participate socially, culturally, societally and professionally”. A fifth are already leaving school without the minimum knowledge required for professional life.
No sooner had the report been published than the GEW, in particular, fumed that the misery was caused by politics, so they should now “not be allowed to carry it out on the backs of the teachers”. The recommendations of the SWK would “only burden the already overburdened teachers”, railed their chairwoman Maike Finnern. There is a threat of “a spiral of overload due to a shortage of teachers and shortage of teachers due to overload”, which will lead to people leaving the profession.
The philologists’ association of high school teachers also warned politicians against “increasing the pressure”. This will “lead to more lessons being canceled instead of fewer, because more and more colleagues simply can’t do it anymore,” said federal chairwoman Susanne Lin-Klitzing.
40 percent of teachers work part-time – the highest level in ten years
The SWK sees the greatest potential for developing resources in reducing the extremely high part-time quota. In 2021/22, a good 40 percent of the approximately 709,000 teachers worked part-time – this is the highest level in the past ten years. Among all employees in Germany, the rate is only 29.9 percent.
The main reason is the high proportion of women, who make up 73 percent of the teaching staff. Almost half of them work part-time, in the West the percentage is even higher. The KMK consultants are therefore pushing to limit the possibility of part-time work. Above all, a reduction to below 50 percent should only be possible for special reasons, such as small children, and sabbaticals should also be restricted.
>> Also read here: Germany lacks around 326,000 STEM experts
Apart from primary school, class size should no longer be taboo: the SWK demands that the upper limits be exhausted first. If that’s not enough, “a temporary increase in the maximum number of classes at lower secondary level should not be ruled out.”
Depending on the country and type of school, this is currently up to 31 students. On average, there are 21 children in a class in primary schools, and there are 24 in secondary school, which is fewer than in 2005. Of course, teachers see large classes as a burden – but research shows “that the effects of class size on the performance of the students students are rather small”, the experts clarify.
They also recommend paying overtime, restricting the right of older teachers to reduce their teaching time, and encouraging as many as possible to come out of retirement.
While these proposals are controversial among teachers, there is broad agreement among the experts who advise that teachers should be relieved of additional tasks such as bureaucracy, IT support or simply correcting class tests. In addition, there is the suggestion that part of the lessons in the upper school should be organized digitally and with self-learning even after the pandemic.
However, the Ministers of Education seem to shy away from the controversial emergency measures, also for fear of losing even more teachers: the catalog is only “a proposal from a scientific point of view, which we first have to feed back to the reality of the school,” said the incumbent KMK chairwoman, Berlins School Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (SPD).
The teaching staff is “particularly challenged” by the pandemic and other crises, and “ad hoc measures must not make them feel insecure”. After all, politics must “secure and maintain the stock”, since the future attractiveness of pedagogical professions “also depends on the measures that we are now taking”.
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