Education assistant in secondary education more and more often in front of the class
The number of teaching assistants in secondary education is increasing. More and more often they take in the lessons of sick or absent teachers. That sometimes puts them in a difficult position.
Image: Pixabay
The number of teaching assistants in secondary education (VO) is growing. In the period 2015-2020 by almost 25 percent, the most recent Trend Report Labor Market of the Ministry of Education. The growth is less turbulent than in primary education, but also in secondary education the number of full-time jobs for teaching assistants increased from 2665 in 2015 to 3282 in 2020.
Vacancies for assistants increasingly state that they will take over lessons from absent teachers. For example, the Almere School Group (ASG) was looking for a teaching assistant for Buitenhout College at the beginning of this year. Content of the position: 'replacing lessons in the absence of the teacher', according to the vacancy text.
According to spokesperson Jeroen Oosterheert, it is 'not a goal in itself' for a teaching assistant to fill in teaching time. This mainly concerns the ad hoc reception of canceled lessons. An assistant at ASG can only teach regularly for a deficit subject such as Dutch, but then 'in the lower years, under the responsibility of the section and only if he is training to become a teacher', according to Oosterheert. In that case, he calls the deployment of teaching assistants 'a side effect of a shortage of qualified teachers'.
Teachers are not waiting for those lesson cancellation hours
The Cambium College in Zaltbommel was also recently looking for what the school calls a teaching assistant: 'The teaching assistant (LOA) receives lessons from subject teachers who are absent for various reasons.' Director Hanneke Koster says that the school has been working like this for a few years now. “Previously, teachers were scheduled for one or two hours a week to replace colleagues if they were ill. But nobody really wanted those hours.”
Last minute
Koster sees no relationship between the rise of assistants and the teacher shortage in secondary education. “Assistants are not second-rate teachers that we put in front of the class for an apple and an egg,” she emphasizes. “It's about last-minute care in the event of a class cancellation. A class that you do not know, a subject that you do not master and sometimes without material available: this increases the workload of teachers. That is why we have started to organize it differently.” Teaching assistants at Cambium College do their work for a salary in scale 5 of the collective labor agreement, paid from the covenant fees from 2019Koster said.
The Metameer from Boxmeer has a similar story, which had an assistant vacancy at the beginning of this year for 'receiving lessons from an absent teacher'. Location director Maartje van de Kerkhof: “We don't want class cancellations at our school. That is why we have a number of FTEs of teaching assistants. Pupils do not have to go home and the structure of the school day remains intact. We have been doing that for years.”
Paper reality
The school principals see a clear dividing line between the work of an assistant and that of a teacher. Van de Kerkhof emphasizes: “We stick to the job description very strictly. The teacher prepares the teaching assistant for the lesson as much as possible. An assistant can never replace the teacher, that would not be fair either.” Koster, director of Cambium College, thinks that some teaching assistants 'cannot resist the temptation to do more than is expected of them'. If this happens often and if the assistant has the ambition to grow further, the school should look at what is possible, she believes.
It was probably all born out of necessity, but if you already indicate in your ad text for supporters that someone is going to teach, you shouldn't beat around the bush
According to Jelmer Evers of the AOb In this way, the teacher shortage is covered by employers and the quality of education continues to decline. “It was probably all born out of necessity, but if you already indicate in your ad copy for supporters that someone is going to teach, you should not ignore it.”
Lidian van Brummelen, who has been working as a teaching assistant in secondary education for 12,5 years, often experiences the separation between her work and that of a teacher as a reality on paper. She explains that the teacher drops out during childcare, but that the subject simply remains. “Of course you will then delve into the material, for example. This is necessary to give structure to the lesson and to maintain authority. You can turn on a Kahoot or a movie again, but the kids soon get tired of that.”
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Van Brummelen currently works at a pre-vocational secondary school, but has also sometimes replaced mathematics lessons from a senior HAVO teacher. “At that time, I sometimes said to students: This is beyond me. Write down your questions and I will email them to the teacher. Then the disciples asked, What are you doing here? Then we might as well take a break.”
Corona
Van Brummelen has seen her work change in recent years. Where she used to mainly help individual students or small groups, she and her fellow assistants now replace about eight to ten lessons a day. Corona has fueled that. “The number of stand-in lessons varies per day, but if I am used for this, my other work is left behind.”
In AOb- facebook group Clarity is requested for secondary education: how many contact hours are teaching assistants allowed to have? And: are they allowed to teach independently or not? One follower states that assistants at her school "are put in front of the class without training or supervision when they don't want to".
Collective Labor Agreement specialist Herman Molleman van de AOb explains that according to the law, scheduled teaching time must take place 'under the responsibility of a qualified teacher'. So a teaching assistant may teach a lesson, project or module, but 'under the responsibility of'. What this responsibility should look like in practice is not laid down in the Education Act.
Officially, we are not ultimately responsible for anything, but in practice we often carry the same responsibilities as teachers
Van Brummelen: “Officially we are not ultimately responsible for anything, but in practice we often bear the same responsibilities as teachers. During the reception of lessons, but also during surveillance, taking tests and exams and conversations with parents and students.”
This Education Act only applies to subjects for which competence requirements exist. No authorization has been established for about 12 percent of the lessons at secondary schools in the Netherlands, according to the most recent ipto measurement where data is collected for all teaching staff in secondary education. Teacher training courses do not grant a diploma/certificate for these 'subjects', such as mentor lessons, for example.
According to Evers van de AOb all unauthorized lessons and lessons that fail should finally be made visible. He sees that teaching assistants do important work, but 'they are not trained to teach a class independently and they are not paid for it'.
Revaluation
A teaching assistant who does not want to be mentioned by name is a mentor and also gives his own lessons. She requested her manager to re-evaluate her position, but received no response. “The improvement lessons I give would be 'supervising an activity' instead of 'teaching'. It does not matter that other students receive the same activity from a teacher. I have never been watched or checked by a teacher. The fact that I decide for myself what students repeat or improve during my lessons apparently has no value.”
I can receive a gross allowance of a few tenners per month for my coachship, as the mentoring lessons at my school are called.
She wishes to remain anonymous, because she does not want to further tighten the employment relationship. “For my coaching, that's what the mentor lessons are called at my school, I can get a gross allowance of a few tens a month. I refused. I don't work for tips. For them it's buying off the guilt and I'm left with the bad feeling that this is unfair."
flower
Van Brummelen also finds her work no longer in proportion to the salary. For her, this is scale 5 of the collective labor agreement (which starts at 1811 euros gross per month). Van Brummelen's drawer is full of cards from teachers and supporters who greatly appreciate her work. “I also do it for those colleagues. But the board could do with more recognition and appreciation for the work we do. And I don't mean a book token or a flower.”
She recently completed a course in student counseling and classroom management. “I want to develop and my school gave me the opportunity to do this training. Maybe I can get another position within the organization through this route.”
The teacher shortage and corona will remain for a while and with it the excuse for class care
The teaching assistant whose name is known to the editors has all but given up hope. “The teacher shortage and corona will remain for a while and therefore also the excuse for classroom care. There is no external incentive for school administrators to do this differently. I am busy looking around for a nice job outside of education.”
Classroom in scale 9
Around 2010 a new position was created at Kempenhorst College in Best between a teaching assistant and a teacher: the teaching instructor. He or she 'replaces the lessons of colleagues who are absent (due to planned absence or illness)', according to the vacancy text last winter. But then at a salary in scale 9, instead of scale 5 or 6 that most teaching assistants are in. Director of personnel Lex Jussen: “We have consciously created a new function, together with the teachers, to prevent students from having to go home when a lesson is canceled.” At Kempenhorst, an instructor may give independent instruction and guide students. But the teacher remains 'responsible for the content of the lessons and the teaching methods', says Jussen.
