Twelve thousand euros gift for 'second' teacher training
Lecturers hardly make use of the special subsidy for following an expensive second teacher training course. The ministry is therefore increasing the allowance considerably, from 3.500 to XNUMX euros per teacher.
Picture: Type tank
Outgoing Minister Van Engelshoven still has the subsidy scheme for retraining teachers expanded while last year she didn't want to hear about it. The twelve thousand euros subsidy is for two years of study, so six thousand euros per year. The old amount was 3.500 euros for one year.
Sky-high tuition fees
What about 'second' studies again? For their first bachelor's or master's degree, students in principle pay the regular tuition fee of about 2.200 euros per year (with a halving in the first year). Anyone who wants to follow another study after that has had to go to higher education since 2010. institutionpay rate. That can amount to thousands of euros.
There are exceptions to that high rate for people who want to retrain for education or care, but those exceptions do not apply to teachers: after all, they are already in education.
In view of the increasing teacher shortage, this may not have been convenient. Therefore decided the minister last year that retraining teachers could now receive a subsidy of 3.500 euros. Teachers who were tired of their first subject might then be retained for education. For example, a PE teacher who wanted to do the PABO could pay for half of one year of institutional tuition fees.
More than two million euros of subsidy remained on the shelf
too scanty
De Algemene Onderwijsbond liked that subsidy a lot too scanty. Just let those teachers pay the low, statutory tuition fees, the union said. GroenLinks also insisted on a broader scheme, but according to Minister Van Engelshoven that was not necessary and also lacked the money. She had 2,5 million euros available annually for the subsidy and expected that about 750 teachers would make use of it.
A year later it turns out that the critics were right and the minister decided to expand the scheme after all. In the explanation she writes that the number of subsidy applications last year remained within limits. This makes a broader allowance “probably more appropriate and effective”.
Inquiries with DUO show that only 94 subsidy applications were submitted last year, together amounting to 329 thousand euros. So more than two million euros of subsidy remained on the shelf.
