Free school Haarlem cancels group 7 due to teacher shortage
The Rudolf Steiner School in Haarlem is canceling group 7 because there is no teacher to be found. The students finish their primary school at free schools in the area. As a result, there will be no group 8 next year.
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The school has made every effort to get a substitute teacher for group 7 (in private schools this is 'grade 5'), but that has not been successful. “It is not possible to find people during the school year,” says Rob van der Meijden, chairman of the board of the Ithaka foundation, the umbrella organization of free schools.
Normal
The formation is complete for the coming school year, also because - due to the departure of group 7 - there will be no group 8 at the school in Haarlem. The current group 6 does move on to group 7, and the following year in group 8. Then the situation, if all goes well, is back to normal.
The underlying problem is the working conditions
According to Van der Meijden, the teaching profession must become more attractive again in order to combat the teacher shortage. “The underlying problem is the working conditions. On top of that, there are other things, such as the fact that teachers get a lot more on their plate through appropriate education, that the government is charging schools more and more and that parents are making increasingly higher demands. You can't solve all that with better terms of employment, but it does help to get more people to attend teacher training courses. ”
