Ministry is thinking about mega class with assistants
The Ministry of Education is seriously considering 'organizing schools differently'. Larger classes with more assistants and fewer teachers, reducing the teacher shortage. According to Robert Sikkes, editor-in-chief of the Education Magazine, eight questions are not asked.
Picture: Len Munnik
A few years ago you heard it whisper at the Ministry of Education (OCW). That it would never be possible to recruit enough teachers again. So that something else had to be invented. Higher teacher productivity. Do more with fewer teachers, wrote the ministerial think tank Network Education Innovation as early as 2009. The OECD also argued in favor of this in 2004. And in the latest Progress Report on the plan of approach for teacher shortages, it is plainly stated 'we will have to consider how the teaching staff can be deployed more intelligently'.
Three more students per class
OCW recently had serious calculations made. When all primary schools appoint 15 percent fewer teachers - three pupils per class more than now - the teacher shortage will be solved. Advisory body CAOP calls this unrealistic, but sees a chance to make 10 percent of schools work 'smarter'. A small group of schools is already experimenting with this.
Of course there is nothing against it to see whether education can be organized differently and better. Experimentation is fine. But anyone who delves into the policy documents mainly reads that with the current efforts of teachers, a solution must be found for a large and permanent teacher shortage. The calculation assumes that there is no need for structural investment in education. Many facts are not mentioned in the notes and questions are not asked. We list a few of them.
1. The student-teacher ratio in the Netherlands is already 16 percent higher than the European average. The Netherlands is internationally known for the fact that primary education is relatively cheap and still delivers high performance. To what extent can that be even smarter?
2. If we increase the student-teacher ratio by 15 percent, the Netherlands has the highest number of students per teacher in Europe. Is that smarter working or stupid frugality?
3. From time to time, educators ask critical questions about the flight that part-time work has taken in primary education. Nowadays children have an average of two teachers per week. Will that be two teachers and two assistants in a class, or in groups of ninety ten different faces?
4. Organizing differently is always about further division of labor: assistants, specialist teachers, pedagogues. With the teacher as the pivot of the group of pupils assigned to her. This requires extra direction and consultation, the teacher as manager of the support staff. Is that more effective?
5. When organizing differently, we usually look at lower educated and therefore cheaper staff, mainly teaching assistants at MBO level. However, it has not been examined whether better education benefits more from academically trained pedagogues and teachers: more expensive staff. And if so, won't the teaching profession with the relatively low salaries become even more unattractive?
6. Educational research shows that a well-trained teacher achieves the most learning gains for pupils. Will this remain the case if you allow staff from other professional disciplines to work more with students and teachers less?
7. Schools with more complex children such as special education or disadvantaged schools are already suffering the most from the teacher shortage. They may be forced to work 'smarter'. Will these children also receive better education, or does this innovation promote the already great dichotomy between the underprivileged and the underprivileged?
8. Schools with high parental contributions are already deploying extra staff of their own. Sometimes based on a special educational concept, sometimes as a quality mark to be extra attractive. It can further stimulate the growth of fully private schools, where small classes with their own teacher are interesting for parents with a well-filled wallet. Look at England, where the student-teacher ratio in public education is high, but low in private education. Are we also strengthening the dichotomy between schools that work old-fashioned with many teachers and the smart schools with fewer teachers?
As long as these questions are not asked, the discussion about working smarter cannot be held. The wage gap of primary school teachers compared to the market is a fact. The pay gap in relation to secondary education is a fact. The high workload - many more students per teacher and many more teaching hours per year than in most European countries with which we like to compare ourselves - is a fact. Yes, raising salaries is expensive. Yes, reducing workload is expensive. But it also increases the attractiveness of the teaching profession. It remains to be seen whether working smarter increases the attractiveness, or whether shortages are reinforced.
Download the complete article from the Education Magazine of February here.
