Amsterdam is moving away from a qualified teacher for the classroom
Amsterdam school boards announced today in Het Parool that the temporary measures to deal with the teacher shortage in the capital will become structural. "The classic educational image in which we put a teacher in front of one class will disappear." The AOb reacts furiously.
Teachers in primary education in Amsterdam will have a coordinating role if it is up to the administrators in the capital. Unqualified persons such as 'artists, accountants and musicians' will more often teach. It's on the front page today Het Parool.
"With this foolish plan you chase the last qualified teachers from the schools"
Thijs Roovers, daily director of the AOb: “I shouted out loud: 'Did you get ripped off' when I read the article. The sentence 'the classic educational image in which we put a teacher in front of a class is going to disappear' made me shiver. And when it was explained later that teachers will have a 'coordinating role', I was sure: with this foolish plan you chase the last qualified teachers from the schools.”
The Amsterdam alderman for education Marjolein Moorman is also not amused. She said on Twitter: 'A shortage of teachers is an emergency, a disaster, which we should never accept as the new normal. '
Ambitions
In Het Parool, Harry Dobbelaar (Zonova), Marton de Pinth (Innoord) and Theo Hooghiemstra (AWBR) indicate on behalf of the forty Amsterdam school boards that the ambitions to reduce the teacher shortage to less than 5 percent have not been achieved. They believe that education 'must move along with social and urban developments'. That is why interventions from what was originally an official emergency plan are now extended to 'at least the next five to ten years'.
'Education is a profession for which you need a completed HBO education'
Robbers of the AOb suspects that these administrators rarely see a classroom from the inside. “I don't understand how people dare to suggest this. If we have a shortage of surgeons, pilots or dentists, we are not going to make up for that with people from the arts and the financial world, are we? Education is a profession – the most beautiful profession in the world – but it is a profession for which you need a completed higher vocational education.”
Together with Parents & Education and Defense for Children, the AOb a manifesto in December 2022: 'Every child a qualified teacher in 2030.' Rovers: “We want the cabinet to it remember that they must ensure that in 2030 overalready qualified teachers are in front of the class. Education is an enshrined right in a vNchildren's rights treaty. Of course we also understand that solutions must be found until then, but putting an accountant in front of a class of children is not education. That is reception.”
According to Roovers, the Amsterdam plans show that school boards have too much power. “These are decisions with far-reaching consequences. Education is a public matter that concerns us all. Decisions about education should be made by a democratically elected body, or by the people who provide education every day. And therefore know what implications decisions have. But in any case not by administrators who are clearly far from practice.”
De AOb also believes that employers can do much more to retain people in education. Roovers: “Offer permanent contracts and good supervision, so that we retain people instead of chasing them away. That is possible, we believe in it, now for the directors.”
No style
Solving the teacher shortage by declaring that the teacher shortage cannot be solved is "a powerful example of rethinking", says author Ronaldo on No style: 'This is how the water companies are working the new shower in which there is no longer constant water coming out of the tap and the shower head is given a more coordinating role. Also solved!'
Lees meer: Every child a qualified teacher in 2030
