Gute education is not a sure-fire success. It cannot be obtained without a sufficient number of professional intermediaries. After the corona pandemic and the growing shortage of teachers as a result of increased birth rates and increased refugee movements, this basically simple insight is more tangible than ever before.
The natural growth in the education system is no longer enough, even worse: it hardly seems possible to attract German high school graduates for certain regions, school types and subjects. Depending on the basis of calculation, up to 160,000 skilled workers will be missing in Germany by 2035. Primary and vocational schools report particular problems.
How complicated the situation is has been described many times in recent months. But what can be done to remedy this? As a long-term measure, all federal states have increased the number of university places. A logical conclusion, because the teachers that are needed in the countries also have to be trained. But it takes at least five years to become a full-time teacher – but the gaps are already there and need to be filled.
This puts a number of short-term measures in the foreground: recruiting lateral and career changers, for example, or keeping teachers who have already reached retirement age. Financial incentives are also given to close the gaps in certain regions and at certain school types. Elementary school teachers are increasingly being hired in salary group A 13, and Berlin recently had no choice but to offer its teachers civil servant status.
If you look at the additional measures taken by the individual federal states, you get the impression that the time has come for the advertising experts. There is hardly a federal state that does not advertise the teaching profession with costly campaigns. Bavaria is still comparatively reserved with the motto “shape the future – become a teacher”. Hesse is already doing more with the appeal “The future needs you!”. But Saxony-Anhalt takes the cake: “Become a teacher – be a hero” says the state’s career portal.
distribution struggles threaten
It is not difficult to see – the need is particularly great in the East. Saxony-Anhalt, one of the three federal states alongside Thuringia and Saxony (Berlin is also included), which is immersed in deep red in a Germany graphic by the Education and Science Union (GEW), which indicates a “very large shortage of skilled workers in all types of school”. already headhunters who are looking for suitable personnel in Germany and abroad. Berlin is increasingly advertising in the Polish border area, while Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is specifically addressing Ukrainian teachers in Cyrillic script.
When asked, the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Education describes the current situation in a way that can hardly be surpassed: “The state has a high rate of retirement in the colleges, while at the same time the number of graduates in the teaching profession is too low. In addition, the market is highly competitive.
Thus, the potential pool of applicants for school service is getting smaller and smaller, despite the fact that lateral or lateral entry has already been made more flexible on the part of the state.” This forecast agrees with a forecast by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Educational Information (DIPF), according to which “distribution battles will arise in the coming years the training and labor market”.
