One university of applied sciences pays teachers more than others
Pay for work? This does not always apply to HBO lecturers. They receive less salary at one university of applied sciences than at another. The Hogeschool Leiden in particular keeps salaries low.
Picture: Type tank
Some HBO teachers earn about the same amount as the primary school teacher or master, the HOP wrote last week. Nationally, this concerns 16 percent of all lecturers at universities of applied sciences.
But one employer is not the other. We wanted to know how big the differences are between universities of applied sciences. Where do you earn the most and where do you earn the least? We have selected it from the fifteen largest universities of applied sciences. These are the results.
© HOP. In FTE. Source: Association of Universities of Applied Sciences. Including teaching staff in lower scales.
Leiden University stands out. Almost half of them are in scale 10 (or even lower). That is roughly the level of a primary school teacher. According to the collective labor agreement, you are then an 'instructor' instead of a higher vocational education teacher.
Bales
The Leiden works council is disappointed, says chairman Remco Loykens. “Maybe we have been too reasonable in recent years and we should have gone in with a straight leg. At the time, the unions advised against it: extra money came for higher education and hard action could hinder the distribution process. In fact, talks about the 'job mix' at the Hogeschool Leiden have only just started. I don't know what the outcome is, I don't have a crystal ball, but of course it shouldn't take four years for the situation to improve. ”
Chairman of the Leiden University Works Council: 'Perhaps we have been too reasonable in recent years and we should have gone into it with a straight leg'
Growing up
The Leiden Executive Board thinks differently about this. “First of all, I acknowledge that we also see this,” says board member Joeri van den Steenhoven. But he wants to take his time. In the coming years, the university of applied sciences can “grow” towards a better mix of functions, so that the picture will look better in 2024.
Couldn't his university of applied sciences just promote a few more teachers to scale 11 and 12? According to him, it is not that easy. The budget has already been set and agreements have been made with the Ministry of Education about the expenditure of the millions from the student loan system (the proceeds from the cutbacks on the basic grant). "We spend more than we receive."
Leiden has invested in intensive education, is one of the arguments, which is why the university of applied sciences employs more lecturers than other universities of applied sciences in the Randstad. There are 19 students for each teacher, which is very little. Then there is less money left for teachers' salaries.
Check
As far as it went, we've checked this. There are universities of applied sciences with an equally low or even lower student-staff ratio, such as Zuyd (17 students per teacher) and Fontys (19 students per teacher), where teachers are paid better. But it is true that Leiden employs a relatively large number of teachers. Van den Steenhoven does not know how much it would cost to put teachers in higher scales.
“The differences between the universities of applied sciences are enormous,” says director Douwe Dirk van der Zweep of de Algemene Onderwijsbond (AOb). “Universities of applied sciences do not deal with it properly across the board. They abuse the freedom they have to create their own functions. ” He cannot imagine that the trade unions have advised the Leiden works council to oppose it.
AObdirector Douwe van der Zweep: 'Universities of applied sciences abuse the freedom they have to create their own functions'
Normal pay scale
Scale 10 can include instructors who help a student prepare for the math test for the teacher training college, Van der Zweep cites as an example, but the work of ordinary HBO teachers is more complex than that. “Hogeschool Leiden wants to turn scale 10 into a normal wage scale. Other colleges are doing it too. That is not possible. If you want teachers at master's level, you have to pay them that way. ”
The union can assist teachers if their university of applied sciences refuses to put them in the correct pay scale, says Van der Zweep. “You dare to do something like that if you have a permanent contract. That is why we have also fought to reduce the number of temporary contracts in recent years. ”
