Side entry is not for the faint of heart

Tekst Joëlle Poortvliet - redactie Onderwijsblad - 29 november 2019 - 5 Minuten om te lezen

Image: Angeliek de Jonge

At the beginning of October, an MBO teacher wrote on her Facebook page: 'I am concerned. After the summer I got a new colleague. Inexperienced and still in training, fifty years old. She was heavily deployed and thought - in her inexperienced optimism - that she would wash that piggy. After six weeks of teaching, she resigned (..). Big tears: it's much too much for me.' The teacher* continues: 'Teaching is a complex task. I'm going on a routine after seventeen years, but a starting teacher has so much to do, to process, to learn. An employer who doesn't see that deserves a red card as far as I'm concerned.'

The approved applications for the subsidy for lateral intake until 15 October 2019, source: OCW

Money maker

According to his own words, Derk Gelling was also able to sweep you up after his first week of classes in September 2018. Gelling started with three days of group 5 and a day of substitutes. Incidentally, this goes against the advice of the teacher training colleges to start teaching two, at most three days a week. But Gelling is the breadwinner and went all out. “I got a large class: thirty children and the necessary problems. A foster child, a depressed girl with ADD, four severely dyslexic students and six gifted people who I could not help at their level, because I did not know how. ” At the end of the week, a colleague saw Gelling struggling. Action was taken immediately. The foundation made a substitute free two days a week to be with Gellings lessons and to give feedback. “However, it is only this school year that I have the idea that I have really started. Now I know, for example: I have to start with group formation, with class management, not with a language lesson. ”

Everyone from my side-entry class has gone crazy at least once

Steep learning curve

It's a dilemma. Especially schools where the teacher shortage is palpable are very happy with people who want to go directly to the classroom. But get on it. Lecturer Hélène de Jong has been teaching lateral entrants at the Marnix Academy in Utrecht for three years now and puts it this way: “If you go through such a steep learning curve, it will hurt a bit.” Lateral entrants feel that pain, but what about their students? Gellings group 5 did not receive a Christmas report last year because the Cito scores were very disappointing. In the second half of the year, however, this was rectified. Gelling: “Of course I knew it could be better. And afterwards the school also concluded that they should not have given me that class. This is how everyone in my side-entry class has at one time or another - disrespectfully said - gone crazy. The fact is: you do your very best, but you can't do everything yet.”

The National Consultation on Teacher Training for Primary Education (Lobo) recently made an inventory of dropout rates among side entrants who immediately go to the classroom about 10 percent *Since 2017, the cabinet has been investing more than 50 million euros in lateral entrants who start working immediately. The idea: a school board tests the side entrant for competence, hires him and receives 20 euros for two years of training and supervision. This subsidy scheme has existed for almost twenty years and was also popular during the teacher shortage in the late 2012s. In 20, the Education Inspectorate investigated this type of lateral entrant and stated that approximately 2020 percent dropped out during the study program and that better guidance is needed. The inspectorate will evaluate the scheme again in XNUMX.. That's not much. But, warns Lobo chairman Barbara de Kort: "The majority has only just started, so 10 percent does not say everything." We know about starters in general that approximately 8 percent (primary) and 20 percent (secondary and secondary vocational education) leave education within a year.

Toil

It is difficult to form an unambiguous picture of how the side entrants are doing anyway. There are the hard-working enthusiasts, such as Gelling's class at the Marnix Academy. They too 'fall on their face', but are helped or toiled through it in time. In addition, there are the often anonymous stories about dropouts. Femke Huvenaars, who works in secondary vocational education, says on Twitter: 'In my PDG group full of lateral entrants, two dropped out within six months, two others have not (yet) reached the finish line in my opinion. Teaching is hard work, especially in combination with study. I made it, but the balance was completely lost. ' Martine de Geus considered entering primary education in Rotterdam, but did not start. She tweeted: 'Immediately, or after about eight weeks, only three days for the group. As if the profession is not taken seriously. (..) No idea how you survive that. '

My manager said: If I don't get complaints, it's okay. And with that my guidance was done.

Maturation time

Lateral entry, lecturer De Jong of the Marnix Academy concludes, is in any case 'not for the faint-hearted'. Freely translated: not for wimps. De Jong: “I would give them more ripening time, but I know it is possible. I once did it myself. In secondary education. Go for class and get your papers at the same time. My manager said: If I don't get any complaints it's okay. And with that my guidance was completed. ”

Many team leaders are not aware of the special collective agreements for starters

Appointments

In order to better enforce guidance in primary education, Lobo wants agreements on this to be set out in black and white in the contract that the entrant, the school board and the teacher training college sign. Last year, it was agreed in the collective labor agreement for MBO that a starting teacher would be deployed 10 percent less. But, says MBO teacher Jet Idskes, who collects stories of students who have dropped out of the students: “This is not working properly yet. The agreement does not say what the hours should be from. A board may, for example, determine that a starter does not have to supervise open days, but that he is fully committed to the lessons. Moreover, many team leaders do not know this agreement. ”

AObdirector for secondary vocational education, Tamar van Gelder, responds: “We really need every starting teacher and that is precisely why we made this collective labor agreement, they should be spared. If this is not done sufficiently in practice, we would very much like to know. Then we address the employers about this. ”

Are you or do you know a side entry student? Then read here six tips.

* The names of the teacher who posted the Facebook message and the side entrant who has already stopped are known to the editors of the Education Magazine.