Bonus teaching staff for disadvantaged schools creates dichotomy
Several school boards are unhappy with the allowance that outgoing Minister of Education Arie Slob has set up especially for staff at disadvantaged schools. Director Ryszard Kruszel of the Movare school foundation (46 primary schools in Limburg) thinks it is an 'idiotic measure'. He calls the scheme 'unjust' and according to him the allowance creates a dichotomy in education and within teams.
Picture: Type tank
“Everyone is working hard and more pay is needed for all colleagues,” director Kruszel told the magazine InfoMR of AOb. “It sometimes happens that the staff at one school is eligible for the labor market allowance and their colleagues five blocks away or even the school next door with a comparable student population, get nothing. That feels very bad.”
At Movare, eight schools are eligible for the extra allowance that Slob in august this year has committed. All employees at schools with many arrears will receive an 8 percent higher salary for two years. For a teacher this roughly means - according to the minister's calculation example - 350 euros extra per month. For teaching assistants, this is an allowance of 260 euros per month. Only schools in regular primary education, special primary education and special secondary education, where many pupils are disadvantaged, are entitled to such an allowance.
One school does qualify for the labor market allowance and their colleagues five blocks away or even the school next door with a comparable student population receive nothing
Cigar
The first payment of these allowances will be from November 1, Slob . reports in a letter to the Chamber. The money, 375 million euros in total, is part of the National Education Program (NPO). Driver Kruszel also has trouble with that. “This is a cigar from its own box. This comes from the NPO money, which was already there. That was intended for the children to catch up on corona arrears and now a substantial amount is deducted from it. That feels very uncomfortable for a lot of people here.”
Still, Movare is carrying out the measure as Slob wants, although Kruszel does not expect extra people to come. “The 500 million that is coming up for everyone in primary education, that is essential, we expect something from that. I think that from secondary education, wherever the decline comes, people will switch to primary education.” This temporary labor market grant could even be a perverse incentive to go shopping within a foundation, fears the Movare director.
The 500 million that is coming up for everyone in primary school, that is essential, we expect something from that
Such a temporary allowance can have unforeseen and unwelcome side effects, Kruszel notes. “It can have far-reaching consequences for the right to housing benefit or health care benefit.” All school directors are therefore talking to colleagues to see if this is the case “there are already colleagues who have drawn up a waiver. And that means that the others get a little more.”
Unfair
In Limburg they are not the only ones who have difficulty with the allowance. Education alderman Raymond Wanders of the municipality of Emmen also thinks it is unfair. It Newspaper of the North wrote about 'an administrative quarrel about money' in which Wanders received a slap on the wrist from Slob when he announced that the money would be divided among all schools in public education - twenty in total in Emmen - and not just among the disadvantaged schools (seven schools) . 'We expect that the teaching staff in Emmen will not allow these resources to end up elsewhere than for which the money is intended,' says Slob's spokesperson Deborah Jongejan in the newspaper. Wanders thinks he is not doing anything wrong, he told the newspaper at the beginning of October. 'We think this can be done within the collective labor agreement, we meet the minimum conditions and, moreover, everything must be arranged before 1 November. So we do it our way.'
Slob's bonus was hard on board chairman Arjette de Pree. Six schools in Leeuwarden are eligible for the grant from its Prologue school board. In return for Omrop Friesland she said she doesn't feel well. 'As a board, I have to grant that allowance, but I prefer not to make a proposal because I think it's an unfair measure. We are not going to refuse the money, because I am glad that the minister thinks that teachers deserve a little extra. But I do it with pain in my heart and with a heavy heart: I wish it were true for everyone.'
'slop solution'
De AOb feels that the temporary allowance does not solve anything. Thijs Roovers, AOb-driver, said that before. 'It is as we are used to from this minister: he comes up with a measure that seems to be a solution, but it is not. We now call it a Sloblossing.' Slob actually wanted the unions and employers' organizations to conclude an agreement, but the organizations did not agree. They believe that there should be structural funding for education and that this grant only displaces the problem.
De AOb made useful guidelines for various education sectors about the National Education Programme. View on www.aob.nl / npo to download them and for more information.
