The teachers’ union has warned of a shortage of staff when school starts. The minister objects. There were 14,000 applicants for approximately 8,000 open positions.
“Teachers in Limit: ‘Too Few Staff, Too Few Resources’ or ‘Warning Before School Starts: ‘Teachers Don’t Start Work’: Warnings about this have been renewed in the media over the past few days. There is a shortage of teachers at the start of school. But the Minister of Education assures. “In the coming school year we will all Lessons can also be held,” Martin Polashek (ÖVP) told a press conference on Friday.
However, the workforce changes in the education sector are huge. For the coming school year, 8,070 full-time and part-time positions were advertised throughout Austria (about 5,600 full-time equivalents). By far the largest demand for personnel is in the federal capital. 1,800 posts had to be filled here. Demand was particularly high in Lower Austria (1,310 jobs) and Styria (1,150 jobs).
As Polaschek said Friday, all of the advertised positions will either be filled or there are already confirmed applications for them. Overall, the Education Minister expressed his happiness over the increased interest in teaching. There were a total of 14,165 applicants for about 8,000 posts advertised. About 100 posts are currently unfilled. In the east of the country, school starts a week from Monday (September 2) and a week later in the west. But by then some unfilled vacancies will also be resolved. Gaps can be filled through overtime. If qualified staff cannot be found before the start of school, the Education Directorates should reach out to teacher training students in advanced semesters. In individual cases, pensioners are also included in the classes.
“The celebratory announcement is very bold,” the union said
Unionists are not as optimistic as the Education Minister. “I think it’s very brave to go to a press conference with a big announcement,” Paul Kimberger of the Compulsory School Teachers’ Union (FCG) tells “The Press”. The start of school will be successful, but the staffing situation in some federal states and school categories is “very tense”. So, the real “stress test” for schools takes place on the first day of school.
Whether the applicants will actually start their service will be known only when the school starts. In recent years, applicants often do not turn up for placement. After all, applicants often apply for multiple open positions.
“We have this conversation every year.”
The Minister of Education replied again. This conversation about missing teachers when school starts is something we do “every year”. All hours may be filled at the end of each year. Of course there are short-term disruptions here and there – for example due to layoffs, pregnancies and sick leave – but overall he doesn’t see any major problems. This year, “many, many more positions have been permanently filled” than in previous years. The minister could not understand the news about the increase in retrenchment by the teachers’ union.
Understaffing in schools is nothing new. This is due to a strong retirement wave, an ever-increasing trend towards part-time work, longer training for the job (in recent years) and layoffs. The Ministry of Education has tried to counter this in recent years. The “Classwork” initiative aims to attract more people into the teaching profession. The Ministry is happy that this too has been successful. The number of teacher training students has risen sharply in recent times. Also, the bachelor’s degree program was recently shortened by one year. This will help prospective educators to get into the system faster.
Many applicants for lateral entry into the school
Also, an initiative for the differently abled has also been launched. 7,500 people have applied for such lateral entry since last year. 3730 are certified and therefore authorized to teach. As a result, more than 3,000 applicants were rejected. “Even in situations where we are looking for teachers, we can provide quality,” says Andreas Schneider, head of the certification authority.
Schneider couldn’t understand reports that many career changers drop out of school soon after starting. A maximum of 20 people have dropped out again so far, which is one to two percent. Objectives are currently being explored in an accompanying study.