Minister: No national guidance on grading MBO teachers
Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf maintains that he does not want to set national targets for a higher salary scale for teachers in MBO. He has agreed on this with the employers' umbrella organization the MBO council, according to an official briefing to the minister.
Picture: Livestream Tweede Kamer
Ahead of what continued today senior secondary vocational education committee debate Dijkgraaf sent yesterday a letter to the House of Representatives, who explains how he wants to improve career prospects for MBO teachers. Each institution must draw up a quality plan, which must be approved by the works council. Among other things, it must be made clear when lecturers are entitled to a higher salary scale and what the distribution of salary scales among teaching staff will look like in the coming years.
Specifically for those career prospects is 142,2 million euros annually available: 52,2 million from the existing job mix scheme and an additional 90 million. That money will be distributed among all MBO institutions. With effect from 2024, Dijkgraaf will put an end to the 'old' function mix regulation, which applied specifically to the Randstad conurbation. Incidentally, Dijkgraaf does say in his letter to Parliament that he 'encourages' trade unions and employers to make national agreements.
Route
The result of the new approach is that the trade unions are on balance sidelined in the plans to improve the grading for MBO teachers, warns AObdirector Henrik de Moel. Dijkgraaf's route deviates strongly from the path that fellow minister Dennis Wiersma is taking with the Education Agreement in primary and secondary education, in which national (cao) agreements between unions and employers have been set as a condition. The joint unions have in a letter urged the House of Representatives, among other things, to make national agreements about the maximum percentage of MBO teachers in the lower salary scale LB and the minimum percentage of MBO teachers in the higher salary scales LC and LD.
In this way you adhere to your agreement with the MBO council not to impose specific national objectives from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
The minister has promised the vocational education council that he will not play a role in this himself, as can be concluded the decision note which was also made public last night in Dijkgraaf's letter to parliament, an official briefing to the minister about the course to be followed. 'In this way you stick to your agreement with the MBO council not to impose specific national objectives from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science', it says.
In the memorandum, civil servants prepare the minister for the possibility that members of the House of Representatives could continue to ask questions about the lack of national guidance on salary scales during the remainder of the debate today. 'The line is to stick to the agreement with the MBO council to only establish a few frameworks and to give the sector further scope to develop specific national objectives or not.'
What I find complicated and ambiguous is that, on the one hand, the minister encourages collective bargaining parties to make national agreements, but indicates in the same letter that he leaves it to the institutions themselves
“That appointment is news to me,” De Moel responds. “We already know from the MBO Council that they do not want to set national criteria for this. What I find complicated and ambiguous is that the minister on the one hand encourages collective bargaining parties to make national agreements, but indicates in the same letter that he leaves it to the institutions themselves. The minister does not seem to fully understand that not much can be agreed upon if you delegate the authority to the works council. But we will take the minister's call to the collective bargaining table next month. I am curious how the MBO council will respond to this, especially given their attitude towards OCW.”
Motion denied
The factions of PvdA and GroenLinks today submitted a motion to persuade the minister to make concrete statements about the grading. The House of Representatives will vote on it next Tuesday, but Dijkgraaf already advised against him today.
“I do not want agreements at national level to be conditional on the allocation of resources,” said the minister. “I trust that the individual institutions can come up with ambitious quality plans for their teaching staff. concrete way, because the works council has the right of consent.”
In a written response to the editor, a spokesperson for the MBO Council said, among other things, that national government objectives 'do not match the employer role of MBO schools' and that sectoral, prescribed agreements 'do no justice' to the differences. between secondary vocational education institutions.
