AOb: With help from The Hague, shrinkage in secondary education can be a blessing in disguise
De AOb believes that the Ministry of Education should address the decline in secondary education as an opportunity. "The workload is too high in secondary education. Fewer students should therefore not mean that less money becomes available," said AObVice-chairman Ben Hoogenboom.
"We want to be able to provide high-quality lessons in the Netherlands. Optimally prepared and with attention for every student. The decrease in the number of students leaving primary education can help with this," says Hoogenboom.
A year and a half ago, the House of Representatives passed a motion by D66 politician Paul van Meenen. It called for the number of teaching hours per teacher to be set to a maximum of XNUMX per week for full-time employment, so that teachers have time to keep track of their subject and their lessons.
Utilize
Hoogenboom: "I can imagine that Van Meenen will do everything he can to make use of the demographic development to allow his plan to come to fruition in The Hague. Certainly with his party in the government and education minister Van Engelshoven (D66) at the department I actually assume that this has largely solved the problem of possible redundancies."
In order to preserve as much as possible the number of teachers who are still in danger of coming between shore for the sector, the AOb constructive policy. "Schools must look at their workforce and ensure that the different generations show solidarity with each other. You must be able to retain starters by looking at older colleagues in redundancy schemes. If they still feel vital for the class, then you should especially cherish them and possibly motivate them to a coaching role. The graduating generation has an enormous amount of knowledge that starters can use to their advantage."
AOb-director Ben Hoogenboom: "I can imagine that Van Meenen will do everything he can to use the demographic development to bring his plan to fruition in The Hague. Especially with his party in the government."
Shortage courses
Then, of course, there are the shortcomings. "Unfortunately, contraction does not mean that we will be out again in two years' time with the number of mathematics teachers," says Hoogenboom. "The composition of our profession is too complex for that. Of course you always have to see if there are teachers who want to retrain, but you have to be realistic: a good history teacher is not automatically a good math teacher. A career in primary education is a possibility, but as long as The Hague refuses to repair the salary gap between primary and secondary education in the spending limit, I don't see many secondary school teachers for groups seven or eight."
In the meantime, caution is advised. "History is repeating itself a bit. It is mainly the starters who already have problems finding work in the shrinking areas. Things went wrong there a few years ago, when the problem was in primary education: people those who left the pabo could not find work and many schools found it cheaper to give notice to colleagues with a shorter employment contract. We now have a huge and rapidly increasing teacher shortage there, and you have lost those people. Secondary schools have to learn from that mistake."
Read the article from the Education Magazine: 'The big contraction is coming' op AOb. Nl
