Making money from the teacher shortage

Tekst Yvonne van de Meent - Redactie Onderwijsblad - 26 april 2022 - 10 Minuten om te lezen

Picture: Type tank

Eric Bastiaansen is an educational entrepreneur, a pioneer who sees commercial opportunities in problems such as the teacher shortage and the growing number of sitters at home. on LinkedIn he calls himself a 'creative and innovative go-getter who creates win-win situations'. In doing so, he stretches the rules as far as possible. Or he bypasses them. That has been going well for twenty years. But his most recent adventures with private education and bringing Surinamese teachers to the Netherlands seem to have failed.

Bastiaansen company Interteach In 2008, it was one of the first in the Netherlands to supply temporary teachers to schools. The agency guarantees that a qualified and experienced teacher will be on the doorstep two hours after a replacement request has been received. In 2022, no school will have to be without replacements, because Interteach now also supplies digital teachers who teach online.

The employment agency does that for a friendly price. Interteach is in fact registered in the central register of short vocational education and that provides a VAT exemption. As a result, a substitute at Interteach is 21 percent cheaper than at competitors. Until now, Interteach makes use of the exemption, while professional courses such as 'Inspector of climbing equipment' and 'Security officer II' have long since disappeared from the offer.

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If it becomes difficult to find substitutes in 2018, Bastiaansen will look for a new revenue model. He sees potential in a private school that offers online primary and secondary education. Parents can choose: private lessons with a digital tutor for four hours a day or online lessons in a group of up to five students.

From one promotional video from 2018 that can still be found on YouTube, it appears that Interteach is targeting the top segment. 'Wherever you are, you can always and everywhere get started with the Interteach curriculum,' says the voice-over while the camera zooms in on a girl who opens her laptop on the edge of a swimming pool at a large villa. In addition to Dutch and English, students can learn Spanish, Arabic, Russian or Chinese. 'But we also do a lot of sports,' says the voice-over as the pool girl in a tennis outfit walks to a car waiting for her in the driveway. 'Your child will then be picked up by one of our drivers.'

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Picture: Type tank

home sitters

The concept of digital private education for rich children probably did not catch on, because two years later Bastiaansen is taking a completely different tack. The online school that will start in 2020 is aimed at students who do not feel comfortable at school or who no longer want to go to school. These home-sitters receive distance group education four days a week and physical education one day a week at Interteach. Appropriate tailor-made education, says Interteach the concept† Primary education costs 375 euros per month, secondary education 525 euros.

The school is not yet off to a good start. The teaching method does not comply with the Compulsory Education Act, the Education Inspectorate noted a year ago. The school setting in which children hang out together, acquire social skills and learn from each other is lacking in the online concept. The Inspectorate believes that this requires at least three physical teaching days per week. Going to the administrative court was to no avail, who suggested the inspection in November last year in the right.

Going to the administrative court was to no avail, who ruled in the favor of the Inspectorate in November last year

After that ruling, Interteach submitted a new application to be recognized as a private school. Under a different name and with a new concept, a spokesperson for the inspectorate reports. As long as that application is ongoing, Interteach may continue to provide digital education to the hundred home-schoolers that the online school now has.

Once the recognition has been received, Interteach will apply for funding, said director of education Marieke Budding, in a letter at the beginning of February. Pictio Education Podcast† “We are so convinced of our educational idea. We have been seeing good results for 1,5 years. That is why we want it to be accessible to everyone.” But Budding fears that the Education Inspectorate will not approve the new application. “They stick to physical education three days a week, fifteen hours a week. They do not recognize our digital lessons as education.”

Better life

Things are not going smoothly with another Interteach project either. In 2019 Bastiaansen decided to give his temporary employment activities a new impulse by bringing Surinamese teachers to the Netherlands. “Because my private school was not doing so well financially, the teacher shortage was increasing and Surinamese teachers are already working here, I thought it was a good idea,” he says during a telephone interview at the end of February, which he angrily breaks off after an hour.

Bastiaansen asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) how Interteach could obtain a work permit for Surinamese teachers and was told that he would then have to register the company as a sponsor. The IND checks the reliability and financial health of a company that wants to employ foreign workers. Cost: more than 4200 euros. “But we passed with flying colors”, says the Interteach director proudly.

Suriname

A Facebook call ('Are you a certified teacher, teacher or nurse, living in Suriname and would you like to have the opportunity to work in the Netherlands?') yielded sixty responses in one day. 2019 people attended the information meeting in Paramaribo that Interteach organized in September 350. In the end, fifty Surinamese teachers paid 300 euros for the work permit that Interteach would provide. “I didn't earn anything from that,” says Bastiaansen. "That's just what it costs."

Reshma Mangre, chairman of the Surinamese Association of Teachers, is not surprised by the great interest. “As a trade union, we obviously don't want to initiate a brain drain, but the offer made by Dutch mediators is very attractive,” she says in a zoom conversation. “We are in a deep, deep crisis in Suriname. Teachers need two or three jobs to make ends meet. A teacher earns an average of 3000 Surinamese dollars per month, which is less than 150 euros. It is logical that individual teachers look for a better life.”

Resistance

But the Surinamese teachers who paid two monthly salaries for a chance at a better life in the Netherlands have not received a work permit. Eric Bastiaansen attributes this to opposition from the IND. “I have applied for permits for fifty teachers. That was rejected because Surinamese teachers are not qualified in the Netherlands.”

He didn't let it go there. “I have submitted a new application to be able to deploy the Surinamese teachers as teaching assistants. I paid for that out of my own pocket.” That too was rejected. “Because there would be enough teaching assistants in the Netherlands.” On the third attempt he used heavy artillery. He appealed to the scheme for highly skilled migrants, which is intended for highly educated specialists who will earn a minimum of 4840 euros gross per month. “That application was rejected because the salary would not be in line with the market. That's nonsense isn't it? After all, I can decide for myself how much I pay my teaching assistants”, Bastiaansen sighs.

He believes that he has been misinformed by the IND. “They could have immediately said that I can jump high or low, but that no Surinamese teacher comes into the country. This whole process cost me 150 thousand euros. I had already arranged housing for the Surinamese teachers and the cars that they drive to work were ready.”

This entire process cost me 150 euros. I had already arranged housing for the Surinamese teachers and the cars they drive to work were ready

Bastiaanse continues stubbornly. Because there is still a goat path that he has not walked: the study visa. “I found out that foreign students are allowed to work sixteen hours a week. If Surinamese teachers register with a Dutch teacher training college, they can work with us two days a week.”

Because Interteach now has a bad name in Suriname, according to Bastiaansen because others ran away with his company name, the Edunova Foundation took on the recruitment. At the beginning of this year an appeal appeared in the Surinamese newspaper The True Time

in which Edunova is 'looking for qualified and experienced teachers to work in the Netherlands'. Bastiaansen initially denies having anything to do with that call. But he admits that he is co-founder and director of the foundation, which is also apparent from the registration with the Chamber of Commerce. He also confesses that he has agreed with Brian van Haren of Edunova that from now on he will speak on behalf of the foundation.

bypass

Van Haren caused confusion in Suriname. He told the Surinam Herald that Edunova can get around the work permit. Surinamese teachers can register with a Dutch teacher training college and they will then apply for a study visa. According to Van Haren, Pabo students can work as teaching assistants three to four days a week and save 1500 to 1600 euros a month.

Mangre of the Surinamese teachers' union calls the information Edunova provides flawed. She herself called the number in the ad and left her phone number, but she never got a call back. “That's why I say to people who already want to sell their house to move to the Netherlands: go look for information. Make sure you know which school you end up at. We do not know whether the organization that wants to bring teachers to the Netherlands is a legal person that can provide an official residence permit. I'm not saying it's misleading, but we need to keep teachers from getting into an adventure."

The image that Surinamese teachers can obtain a teacher training diploma in a jiffy and a sigh is incorrect

The fact that teachers with a study visa can work as teaching assistants three or four days a week is in any case a misrepresentation. A residence permit for study is intended to follow a full-time education, not to teach here, a spokesperson for the IND reports. Foreign students are allowed to 'perform additional work' for a maximum of sixteen hours a week. The employer must apply for a work permit for this, but this is issued quickly and smoothly.

Gert van Mallegrom, training manager at the Inholland University of Applied Sciences in The Hague, has discussed the study visa route with Bastiaansen. “It is possible in terms of rules, but in practice it is a road full of bumps,” he says. “The image that Surinamese teachers can obtain a PABO diploma in a sigh and a sigh is incorrect. Teachers in Suriname are trained differently. In the Netherlands we place more emphasis on research skills. And many Surinamese students also have a considerable hurdle to overcome when it comes to the Dutch language.”

Depending on the training they have followed in Suriname, it takes two or three years to obtain the diploma, warns the training manager. And not everyone makes it to the finish line. “If a Surinamese teacher registers, we will of course register him. But to be honest, I find it morally problematic to get highly educated people from Suriname to solve our teacher shortage.”

I leave

“We create added value,” says Eric Bastiaansen. “We contribute to reducing the teacher shortage and give Surinamese teachers a chance to come to the Netherlands. Why shouldn't that exist? Private education is simply not allowed. The government, the unions, journalists, they all have a negative view of my company. It won't be long before I leave this country."

The creative go-getter has another plan ready. “We will soon open a branch in Paramaribo. We want to start an international school there where we can deploy Surinamese teachers with whom we already have contact. We also want to try to finally get a few Surinamese teachers to the Netherlands.”

This article appeared in the April issue of the Education magazine, which is published eleven times a year AObmembers falls on the bus. Read more about all benefits from the AOb-membership.