Smaller class can close teacher leak
There should be a legal maximum for the number of students in a class. That's what the majority of people think AOb-constituency. 'If class sizes become compulsory, the job will become more attractive.'
'After twenty notebooks, tests, parent meetings, book turns, birthdays, reports, child reports and group overviews, I'm always done with it. With thirty kids in your class, you have to have another ten every time… that's what turns me off.' According to one respondent to the AOb-survey 'Teaching time and lesson task, what do the teaching staff think?' .
Teaching staff from primary and secondary education indicate en masse that class reduction leads to better lessons and more job satisfaction. Over 8500 AObmembers completed the questionnaire. In primary education, 79 percent think there should be a legal maximum for group size, in secondary education this applies to 84 percent of the respondents.
Teaching time
Teaching staff believe that a maximum class size is a much better solution to the teacher shortage than reducing teaching time. Tinkering with teaching time is, besides teaching by unauthorized persons, one of the options that the Ministry of Education (OCW) is exploring to combat the dire shortage of teachers.
According to Tamar van Gelder, chairman of the AOb, the profession sends a clear signal: “Large class sizes lead to a lower quality of education. They are also one of the causes of the teacher leak: the fact that many people soon stop working in the classroom.”
We are all in a trap
Van Gelder continues: "We are all caught in a trap. Due to the teacher shortage, the classes are getting bigger and bigger. Because of the large classes, teaching is sometimes really too hard and more and more people are dropping out. The goal should be smaller classes. should have started twenty years ago, when many people thought it was a good idea, but it is didn't happen. It is better for the students, better for the quality and better for the whole of the Netherlands. Now politics really has to get going. "
And survey respondents: 'I've wanted the classes to be smaller for years. When I (…) started as a teacher, the average class size was 24, now 30 at our school. That means that I really can pay less attention to the individual student. That frustrates me.'
Another writes: 'With smaller classes (have had 30's now) I would get more positivity from my work; more attention to all children and better management on a cognitive level.'
Working overtime
From the extensive research that the AOb published last month, it also appears that teachers work overtime on a structural basis: they are given too little time for preparing lessons and grading and for other tasks.
A respondent: 'Every year we have groups of over 30 children. This is not manageable with 1 teacher without support (group 3!). I work days of at least 10 hours and then I am also busy at home for school. There are many children who need extra care on a social-emotional level. With a support person, these children can get more attention or go out of class under supervision.'
Teaching staff would also prefer to set a maximum for the number of special needs students per class.
Check all the results of the study and read'Teaching staff do not want colleagues without a diploma'.
Read more about small classes
It is difficult to find out how large classes are in the Netherlands. Information about this will not be made public, searched the Education magazine.
In the fall of 2020, the petition for smaller classes (initiative of, among others, the AOb) signed 44.000 times.
Back then AObchairman Eugenie Stolk explains how smaller class sizes can be reconciled with the already existing teacher shortages.
