One in six primary schools has problems with replacement
Since the turn of the year, one in six primary schools in the Netherlands has been facing serious replacement problems.
Image: www.mediawijzer.net
On the website teacher shortageisnu.nl schools can indicate every day whether they need replacement, whether this has been successful and if so: who is available for the class. Last Monday, for example, 387 classes had to do without their own teacher. This involved nearly 9.000 children.
Solve internally
Today alone, 795 children were sent home, the website reports. 1059 schools, which is 17 percent of primary schools in the Netherlands, have now submitted a report. In almost half of the cases, the school tries to solve the problem internally. The principal or assistant takes charge of the class (11 percent), the class is divided among other classes (20 percent) or a part-timer comes to work an extra day (15 percent). But that is increasingly not possible. After the Christmas holidays, for example, a pensioner came to teach for a day 65 times. 384 times an unauthorized person stood in front of the class.
Pressure
Also on the AOb-Facebook page it is becoming increasingly clear what pressure the replacement problem puts on the remaining colleagues. And that this situation is not good for the quality of education. For example, teacher Brenda Potiek said that her duo colleague is ill, that she eventually managed to drum up three different replacements and that she was on Monday - not her working day - for different groups at her school. There is no prospect of a solution yet.
Griep
Miss Marielle van Beijnen was herself struck down by the flu. In a matter of days, her group had to deal with five different replacements. "And then we can be happy that we could get a replacement at all!" Monique Bouman says: "Even with us, colleagues have already brought their own children to school so that they could fill in for the duo-colleague themselves."
Invisible
De AOb supports the website. Eugenie Stolk, director of primary education: "Because there are no more substitutes to be found, schools do all sorts of things. But because schools make these choices themselves, the teacher shortage is invisible to the outside world. So help to map out the seriousness of the problems. Is there no teacher due to a vacancy or lack of substitutes? Let us know how your school solves this, every day."
