Year-long contracts for secondary education go to record despite tight labor market
One in five teachers and support staff in secondary education does not have a permanent contract. “How do you get it in your head to keep people on the line endlessly, when we are left with a screaming shortage.”
The labor market is improving, but more and more teachers and support staff have to do without a permanent contract. Figures from education researcher DUO show that the percentage of teachers with a temporary appointment, often annual contracts, in secondary education has grown sharply over the past decade. After a small decrease from 2011 to 13,2 percent in 2013, the share of temporary contracts for this group increased steadily to 17,4 percent on the last reference date, October last year. The trend is even stronger for supporters in secondary education. According to the latest figures, 17,5% of them have a temporary contract. That percentage has more than doubled since 2013.
Negative ranking
For this count, DUO converted the contracts into full-time appointments. When counting the number of contracts instead of hours worked, not incorporated in the graph opposite, the situation is even more wonderful. More than one in five teachers in secondary education had a temporary contract as of 1 October 2021. The same applies to educational support staff: more than 20 percent temporary contracts as of 1 October 2021.
People with temporary contracts usually don't dare to open their mouths
“Explainable”, says AObdirector Jelmer Evers the growth in temporary contracts. “But also unsustainable. How do you get it in your head to keep people on the line endlessly, when we are faced with a crying shortage of educational staff.” Research by the Education Inspectorate showed earlier this year that the chance of dropping out for new teachers with a temporary appointment is more than three times greater than for teachers with a permanent contract. “A lot of talent is lost that way,” says Evers. “I am very excited about that.”
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The massive appointment of support staff and teachers on temporary contracts is not inevitable. Six secondary schools even had their permanent staff as of 1 October last year. At the other end of the spectrum are schools and school boards that employ more than half of their staff on a temporary basis. Schools that have been in the news in recent years rank high in the rankings for temporary contracts.
For example, they are popular with SvPO, the Schools for Personal Education. Before the summer, an investigation by the Education Inspectorate showed that the foundation that manages these schools has illegally spent tens of millions of dollars in education money. Six of the SvPO are in the top ten of school boards with the most temporary teacher contracts. The Islamic Education Foundation, which includes the Amsterdam Cornelius Haga Lyceum, is also negative with a share of more than 60 percent in temporary contracts, converted to full-time jobs. Earlier this year, the Education Inspectorate gave this school the label 'very weak' and threatened to cut funding if the lyceum does not show any improvements.
The fact that Cornelius Haga and the SvPO schools are relatively young can partly explain the high share of temporary contracts of these employers.
Binding
Not every school with a high proportion of temporary contracts is by definition a bad employer. With more than 55 percent temporary contract hours for teachers, the Public Neighborhood College Maas en Peel in Panningen ranks in the top ten nationwide. According to school leader Mathijs Drummen, this can be explained because his school has only been around for over a year. Only a teacher with a Mathematics and Physics qualification and a teacher with a great deal of experience received a permanent contract right from the start of the school. “We have since said goodbye to one colleague, but the vast majority of people get a permanent contract after a year,” says Drummen. “The percentage of temporary appointments has already fallen considerably compared to October last year. For a starting school, bonding is very important and the aim is to eventually give as many people as possible a permanent appointment.”
Nice numbers
Pro Erasmus, a school for practical education in Almelo, is one of six secondary schools in the Netherlands that had all its teachers in permanent employment as of 1 October last year. These seem like good numbers, agrees Executive Board President Hans Weustenraad, chairman of Het Erasmus, a school umbrella organization with more than two thousand students to which Pro Erasmus belongs. However, according to him, these permanent appointments are not the result of a choice of principle.
So much talent is wasted
“It is also not our policy to immediately hire people who come in,” says Weustenraad. “We are dealing with shrinkage in our region. As a result, the number of people we have in the flexible shell has been greatly reduced.” The 100 percent score for permanent appointments was therefore temporary. A new vacancy at Pro Erasmus has meanwhile been temporarily filled.
The contraction can also be unfavorable for new people. “In this tight labor market, a physics teacher with us can really negotiate a high salary scale and a permanent appointment,” says Weustenraad. “But I can't and don't want to offer all teachers these kinds of employment conditions. Given the shrinkage, I then create legal uncertainty for colleagues who have been in permanent employment for some time.”
NPO money
For the Erasmus board as a whole, the percentages of temporary contracts have actually grown from 2020 onwards. Weustenraad explains that from the NPO funds that have become available. “For the time being, we must assume that this money is incidental. We use it for interventions in the classroom, support and homework guidance, but it is not responsible to make permanent commitments with it.”
In this tight labor market, a physics teacher can really negotiate with us
The availability of NPO funds coincides with a peak in temporary contracts, but the growth slows down for a longer period of time. The Trend Report Labor Market Teachers of the Ministry of Education explains the earlier increase in temporary contracts from the high retirement rates in education. New people who come in to replace this outflow usually start on a temporary contract.
Shortage courses
Teachers in deficient subjects such as mathematics and physics can make demands, but teachers of art, social studies or history often find themselves endlessly in uncertainty. That way, their professional autonomy will never get off the ground, fears AObdriver Evers. “People with temporary contracts usually don't dare to open their mouths.” According to the collective labor agreement, school boards are allowed to give teachers a maximum of three temporary contracts in a period of two years, but it wants to AObdirector Evers does not realize that employers cannot form a good picture of their suitability sooner. “After a year you really know what people can do for the class,” he says. “It shows bad employership if you keep people on a leash for longer.”
After a year you really know what people can do for the classroom
Fear of shrinkage is a frequently heard argument for appointing people temporarily, but according to Evers, directors are often too careful with permanent appointments. “Ultimately, this leads to livelihood insecurity that makes people no longer want to practice our profession.” Evers also believes that school boards should cooperate better when offering permanent appointments, as is now happening in some provinces with the Regional Approach to Teacher Shortage.
Sector director Herman Molleman of the AOb agrees with him, but notes that school administrators in large cities who talk about cooperation, in reality continue to compete with each other, in the interest of their own umbrella. Molleman believes that directors should retain talent, even if there are long-term obligations in return. “I see that directors have often become alienated from the workplace. It's about showing good figures and limiting the financial risks for their organization. Unfortunately, they do not immediately feel the problem that the quality of education has been declining for years.”
DUO figures on temporary contracts for support staff and teachers
This infographic is based on data as of 1 October 2021 that school boards have provided to the DUO Education Executive Agency. The numbers are not complete and 100 percent accurate. For example, Matthijs den Haan, rector of Develstein College and board member of the Foundation for Christian Secondary Education Zwijndrechtse Waard (SCVOZ), when asked, does not recognize himself in his top ten score of more than 60 percent temporary contracts for support and teaching staff.
Instead he calculates it Education magazine by email for his organization operating in September 2022 with just under 16 percent temporary contracts for all staff. “This number has not been converted into FTEs”, says Den Haan. "But it won't be far from that."
According to DUO spokesperson Martijn Grimmius, the high percentages were supplied by the SCVOZ board via Visma Raet, the administration system of the schools. “School boards are legally obliged to provide this information correctly,” he says. "But if that doesn't work, there are no sanctions."
Grimmius indicates that 98 to 99 percent of schools and boards succeed in supplying personnel data to DUO. “If data is not supplied, we usually opt for a gentle adjustment method, in consultation with the institution. That usually works well. The inaccuracies and missing data are so marginal that they will not soon be visible in the national averages.”
