Birth leave for Tilburg masters
Teachers employed by the Xpect Primair board in Tilburg will from now on be given four weeks leave with retention of salary when they become a father.
Image: Pixabay
The Tilburg school board considers it important that fathers are involved in the care of their child during the first weeks after birth. Presence lays a good foundation for the father-child relationship. And so masters may from now on, when they become fathers, stay at home paid for four weeks. The same applies to non-biological parents, for example a non-biological mother of a lesbian couple.
It has been possible for fathers and non-biological mothers to take parental leave for some time, but this will then be partly unpaid. This new leave has been paid in full. It's really about the first weeks after delivery. When a baby is born during the summer vacation, the master is out of luck.
“We think it is important that employees have a balance between their work and private life,” explains P&O manager Astrid Plagmeijer. "That prevents burnout." Xpect Primair hopes to attract more men with this gesture. "But this is also a nice signal for our female employees: talk about the division of care tasks at home."
Informal care
“We ask a lot from our employees, we set the bar high, so you have to facilitate your people to achieve those standards,” says Plagmeijer. Xpect Primair is also considering setting up leave for informal carers. “We now see that employees report sick in situations where they are not sick, but have too many care tasks on their plate. Of course we understand that, but we prefer not to be absent. So then we have to make informal care possible. "
From 2019, paid paternity leave in the Netherlands will be expanded from two to five days. As far as is known, Xpect Primair is the first school board where young fathers can get a month of paid leave. ING Bank has also switched to this from this year.
